Persistent breast pain

[cait]

My LO is 2 months old and is breastfed (with the odd expressed bottle). I've had nipple pain at the start which faded, mastitis in the right breast, and a milk blister in the left breast accompanied with stabbing pains in that breast between feeds. The blister was hell but eventually went.
The stabbing pain remains and is quite severe - can keep me awake at night. Any ideas as to what can cause this? His latch seems fine as there's no pain in the nipple, he feeds well and the health visitor was happy with it. I'm stumped.

 

[Sarah lo]

Thrush can cause shooting pains. Another symptom of thrush would be red, sort of shiny looking nipples.

 

[cait]

Thank you. I thought thrush a while back but only in one breast plus LO hasn't got excessively white mouth. I'm in docs next week for his jabs anyway, is it easily tested for?

 

[Sarah lo]

I'm not sure to be honest, I've not actually had it (yet!) Just that my LO currently has it in his mouth and that's what the doctor told me to look out for in case he passes it on to me.

 

[Maxy1]

Well you have a few choices unfortunately.

Thrush is the first one that most people think of. However, this would usually be accompanied by other symptoms - areaola shiny and red, pains in nipple when latching, baby's mouth with white patches.

Vasospasm is something else to consider. Shooting pains in breast with nipple pain. Check your nipple at the end of the feed. If you are suffering from vasospasm, the nipple may be blanched (either pink/purple or white looking), it may be flat instead of round. This will lead to aching breast and shooting pains. Vasospasm is treated by keeping the breast warm, vitamin B supplements and in some cases medication. Without checking for vasospasm it can present exactly the same as thrush without babies mouth getting white obviously.

With your milk blister, how did this resolve itself? You can get blockages in the nipple that are incredibly painful. I have had it twice, both after milk blisters. They eventually pop and for me I had blood in my milk but it can cause pain in the breast also. My Dr prescribed a topical cream (I can't remember what it is) to ensure that it didn't become infected when it popped.

Or it may just be that you have stretched a milk duct out of shape and it is recovering from the stretching, meaning that every time that duct fills up it causes pain. I don't think it is this one for you, because you say it keeps you up at night and the pain from this one is usually mild and gets better over the week.

 

[cait]

Thank you so much for your reply. I have actually had no pain in the past 48 hours or so.

I've never heard if vasospasm but the nipple would have been white or purple after feeding so perhaps this is the one, especially with it being only in one breast and no symptoms in baby.

The milk blister I treated with hot compresses and running a sterilised needle over the area, combined with lots of feeding. It took a good while to drain, and then the broken skin was a bit sore when latching for a day or two but it's long healed now.

As I say I've not had any pain for a few days but I am really grateful for the info in case it comes back.

 

[Night Flower]

Does your little one drain the boob completely before going to the next breast?

I found that I had pain within the boob between feeds (and then expressed between feeds) if we didnt completely empty one boob before going to the next. Usually the pain would be in my right boob. The smaller boob. Or if we went 4 hours without completely emptying both breasts, massive nipple and swollen boob pain.