Can anyone talk me down? Swollen areola

[Bug84]

I’m breastfeeding my 13 month old, he still feeds a lot day and night. A few nights ago, I noticed my right boob felt sore when he latched on. The next morning the areola area was totally engorged, it looked like edema, you know when there’s fluid in it? He refused to latch, but i did get him to do it a couple of times that day.
it was worse yesterday and he would completely refuse this boob so I went to out of hours, GP was lovely and said could be mastitis so gave me fluclox.
the thing is it’s no better today, and the fact that I don’t feel ill / the baby is completely refusing this breast is freaking me out. I think I could have inflammatory breast cancer 😫
im pumping that side which is helping, but the swelling still comes back to the areola and it looks like Peau D’orange there.
has anyone had anything similar?

Antibiotics take a good 48 hours to kick in. I immediately thought mastitis too - very unlikely to be cancer, you're thinking the worst (I do this too) but it's much more likely to be infection

I am 100% a worst case scenario thinker… I do it all the time. Really hoping I’m wrong again! It’s just I don’t ‘feel’ like I’ve got an infection…

In my experience with mastitis, you don't necessarily feel that rough at first - it took me a couple of days to wake up feeling honestly like I might die If you've caught it in time before it can make you feel really ill, then good on you - it's shit (like flu) and I wish I'd caught it while it was still just in my boob.

I hope your ABs work - I had ten days of erythromycin in the end (penicillin allergy) because I hadn't been given a long enough course initially. But it sounds like you might just have caught it before it can make you feel properly shitty.

Sounds like mastitis ime. Stick with the antibiotics, keep well hydrated and try massaging and expressing in the shower.

Sounds like mastitis. Go back to gp if it isn't getting better you might need different antibiotics. Take it seriously though

He probably doesn't latch cos it's too engorged or tastes funny

Thank you all. He’s still refusing that side. Should I keep pumping or will that make it worse?

Keep pumping and offering to feed from that side, if it's mastitis then you don't want to become more engorged. Make sure you take the antibiotics and do go back to the gp if it doesn't seem to be making a difference. Mastitis is manageable but it can become serious if not properly looked after. La leche league website has lots of good advice on how to treat mastitis and what to look out for.

im taking the antibiotics, and ibuprofen, and pumping a bit but not getting much out. The swelling is still there, and I’ve now got some small lumps - I guess because it’s not getting emptied, I hope they’re just full ducts…. He still will absolutely not feed from that boob! Even when he’s half asleep! He’s feeding on the left one only but it feels empty and the nipple is getting sore 😩😩 it’s really stressing me out, why would he reject this boob like this? Even when he’s asleep?
he has drank the expressed milk from it from a cup, so it’s not the taste… he won’t even try to latch on, he just pushes away.