I will warn you now, this is a little long winded, but it has all been a bit long winded. I'm not going to give you advice on what you should do if you have mastitis, I'm just writing this to share a bit of my experience of when mastitis goes nut bar.
A month ago I was sitting in a hospital bed waiting to be discharged from Wellington Hospital with a hole in the side of my breast.
The tiny human is now almost five months old and exclusively breastfeed. In that 5months I have had mastitis three times. I don't know the actual cause of my mastitis problems; but we've made a few good assumptions and each time it has shown in different ways (eg. I only had a fever the first time). If you haven't had or don't know what mastitis is, it's inflammation of the breast. It doesn't mean there is an infection, but blocked ducts can lead to infective mastitis. The symptoms can include headaches, aching, tiredness, a fever, tender breasts, redness of the breast and a lump inside the breast, painful to touch.
I have found that when you have mastitis, everybody has a “magical cure” or tips & tricks to tell you on how to deal with/get rid of it. Advice of keep feeding/expressing or put cabbage leaves down your bra are great and the cabbage leave thing works, but when you're sitting in a hospital bed waiting for surgery you're a bit beyond cabbage leaves.
My first bout of mastitis was just before my final midwife visit, we put it down ill fitting bras; and with some antibiotics & new bras, it went away quick smart. The second time, I don't think it fully went away before coming back again as there wasn't much of a gap; and it was really all just down hill from that second bout of it. The Thursday before the hospital saga began I went to the doctors, said to the doctor I think I have mastitis, she had a look & feel and agreed I had mastitis, prescribed me antibiotics & to return the following week if it was no better. In hindsight, I think she should have sent me straight to the hospital for antibiotic's and probably tests or something. But that is hindsight, and not what happened.
I started antibiotics on the Thursday night, by Saturday it was no better. A friend said I should go to the after hours or something, but I wanted to ride it out. Maybe it would come right and I would be able to ride it out till Monday. Boy was I wrong. The affected area looked bad on Thursday, there was a sizable red patch and an equally sizable lump. By Sunday, it was still red, the lump hadn't subsided and a blistered looking patch of skin had formed, and by late Sunday night the skin on that blister had thinned so much that it started breaking skin, which lead me to go to A&E just before midnight.
It seems a bit of a distant memory now, but the one thing I won't forget is feeling absolutely useless when it came to comforting the tiny human. I put him to bed on Sunday night and then left for A&E, leaving the bearded one at the control panel of tiny human world with some bags of expressed milk thinking that besides the A&E wait I wouldn't be too long.
At 3am I called the bearded one to give him an update, this woke the tiny human & so I later heard via text, it took the bearded one till 6am to settle the little one to have at least a nap.
My mastitis had cause a breast abscess, they could go in with a needle & drain it that way or do it surgically, because of the size of the lump surgery was looking like the way things were heading.
By 5am I had been moved to a ward, I was tired (thanks to moaning Myrtle in the room next to me in A&E) and feeling pretty terrible that I couldn't go home & cuddle my boy to sleep. I had been on nil by mouth all night but the registrar gave me the okay to have breakfast, because 'he didn't think we would go the way of surgery'. I shit you not, no less than five minutes after I had wolfed down breakfast one of the surgeons walked into my room and with a sigh said “well, that ship has sailed”. I now had to wait till later that day to have surgery, needless to say my day nurse wasn't impressed the registrar had given me to okay to eat. So I spent my day being pumped with antibiotics and waiting.
The tiny human and a tired & frazzled looking beard one were in my room as soon as they could get there. Tiny human was stoked to be reunited with the boobs, although I was only feeding off one side (the one that wasn't causing me pain). I had recently given some expressed milk to a friend not thinking we would need all of it, but as it turned out the boys needed to go on a mission to retrieve the liquid gold since they would probably need it while I was in surgery. The small one was unsettled during their milk retrieving expedition, but had fall asleep thanks to the power of the car, the bearded one thought they would go home for a bit; but one foot in the door and the tiny human started screaming, so he decided to return to the hospital and arrived just as I was called to surgery.
The worse part of this whole experience was laying in bed helpless in the surgery waiting area as the bearded one headed back to the ward with a crying tiny human.
The best part of this whole experience was going under general anesthetic after only having a few short naps in a 30ish hour period. That was the best sleep ever and if they could bottle & sell this, the world would probably be a better place.
The following morning I had a visit from the lactation consultant who concluded I am fully & well informed about breastfeeding and mastitis (I would think so after how often I've had to deal with it). She did also tell me though that standard procedure is to continue breastfeeding or expressing from both sides right up till surgery. Something the ward wasn't aware of as they don't normally see breast abscess cases, but I feel I would have punched somebody had I had to feed or express up until surgery.
A month on and the sizable hole in my left breast (about the size of an old 50 cent piece) is now in it's very final stages, and by the end of this week it should be fully healed. The difference between pre-surgery & post surgery is night & day. I instantly felt so much better upon waking up from surgery, which isn't what I expected, I thought there would be at least some pain from the surgery.
I hope this is the last time I write about mastitis, but generally if you've had it once you will get it time & time again, so if anything I hope I never get it this bad again.
The tiny human is now almost five months old and exclusively breastfeed. In that 5months I have had mastitis three times. I don't know the actual cause of my mastitis problems; but we've made a few good assumptions and each time it has shown in different ways (eg. I only had a fever the first time). If you haven't had or don't know what mastitis is, it's inflammation of the breast. It doesn't mean there is an infection, but blocked ducts can lead to infective mastitis. The symptoms can include headaches, aching, tiredness, a fever, tender breasts, redness of the breast and a lump inside the breast, painful to touch.
I have found that when you have mastitis, everybody has a “magical cure” or tips & tricks to tell you on how to deal with/get rid of it. Advice of keep feeding/expressing or put cabbage leaves down your bra are great and the cabbage leave thing works, but when you're sitting in a hospital bed waiting for surgery you're a bit beyond cabbage leaves.
My first bout of mastitis was just before my final midwife visit, we put it down ill fitting bras; and with some antibiotics & new bras, it went away quick smart. The second time, I don't think it fully went away before coming back again as there wasn't much of a gap; and it was really all just down hill from that second bout of it. The Thursday before the hospital saga began I went to the doctors, said to the doctor I think I have mastitis, she had a look & feel and agreed I had mastitis, prescribed me antibiotics & to return the following week if it was no better. In hindsight, I think she should have sent me straight to the hospital for antibiotic's and probably tests or something. But that is hindsight, and not what happened.
I started antibiotics on the Thursday night, by Saturday it was no better. A friend said I should go to the after hours or something, but I wanted to ride it out. Maybe it would come right and I would be able to ride it out till Monday. Boy was I wrong. The affected area looked bad on Thursday, there was a sizable red patch and an equally sizable lump. By Sunday, it was still red, the lump hadn't subsided and a blistered looking patch of skin had formed, and by late Sunday night the skin on that blister had thinned so much that it started breaking skin, which lead me to go to A&E just before midnight.
It seems a bit of a distant memory now, but the one thing I won't forget is feeling absolutely useless when it came to comforting the tiny human. I put him to bed on Sunday night and then left for A&E, leaving the bearded one at the control panel of tiny human world with some bags of expressed milk thinking that besides the A&E wait I wouldn't be too long.
At 3am I called the bearded one to give him an update, this woke the tiny human & so I later heard via text, it took the bearded one till 6am to settle the little one to have at least a nap.
My mastitis had cause a breast abscess, they could go in with a needle & drain it that way or do it surgically, because of the size of the lump surgery was looking like the way things were heading.
By 5am I had been moved to a ward, I was tired (thanks to moaning Myrtle in the room next to me in A&E) and feeling pretty terrible that I couldn't go home & cuddle my boy to sleep. I had been on nil by mouth all night but the registrar gave me the okay to have breakfast, because 'he didn't think we would go the way of surgery'. I shit you not, no less than five minutes after I had wolfed down breakfast one of the surgeons walked into my room and with a sigh said “well, that ship has sailed”. I now had to wait till later that day to have surgery, needless to say my day nurse wasn't impressed the registrar had given me to okay to eat. So I spent my day being pumped with antibiotics and waiting.
The tiny human and a tired & frazzled looking beard one were in my room as soon as they could get there. Tiny human was stoked to be reunited with the boobs, although I was only feeding off one side (the one that wasn't causing me pain). I had recently given some expressed milk to a friend not thinking we would need all of it, but as it turned out the boys needed to go on a mission to retrieve the liquid gold since they would probably need it while I was in surgery. The small one was unsettled during their milk retrieving expedition, but had fall asleep thanks to the power of the car, the bearded one thought they would go home for a bit; but one foot in the door and the tiny human started screaming, so he decided to return to the hospital and arrived just as I was called to surgery.
The worse part of this whole experience was laying in bed helpless in the surgery waiting area as the bearded one headed back to the ward with a crying tiny human.
The best part of this whole experience was going under general anesthetic after only having a few short naps in a 30ish hour period. That was the best sleep ever and if they could bottle & sell this, the world would probably be a better place.
The following morning I had a visit from the lactation consultant who concluded I am fully & well informed about breastfeeding and mastitis (I would think so after how often I've had to deal with it). She did also tell me though that standard procedure is to continue breastfeeding or expressing from both sides right up till surgery. Something the ward wasn't aware of as they don't normally see breast abscess cases, but I feel I would have punched somebody had I had to feed or express up until surgery.
A month on and the sizable hole in my left breast (about the size of an old 50 cent piece) is now in it's very final stages, and by the end of this week it should be fully healed. The difference between pre-surgery & post surgery is night & day. I instantly felt so much better upon waking up from surgery, which isn't what I expected, I thought there would be at least some pain from the surgery.
I hope this is the last time I write about mastitis, but generally if you've had it once you will get it time & time again, so if anything I hope I never get it this bad again.