Category Archive: Mastitis

I was attacked by another bout of Mastitis yesterday and am still feeling the pain today. I was really exhausted 2 nights ago, overslept (I normally wake up between 3-5am to change her diaper and feed her) and did not switch sides to let Baby suckle on my right boop.  Yesterday morning, my nightie was wet and I realized that I was leaking milk (which hardly happens now after 17 months of breastfeeding). I touched my boop and gawd, it felt hard, full and slightly painful.  Hours passed by and the pain gradually intensified and my right boop hurts terribly.  I kept asking Baby to suckle on that boop but somehow, this fler just prefers the left boop.  She kept pushing herself away from my right boop each time she’s placed there and kept gravitating to the left boop!  See, even toddlers have preference over which side of mummy’s boops to latch on! I wonder if the milk tastes different from each breast haha!  I’ve been popping on double dosage of garlic pills with Lecithin and I hope the pain and lump go away by today.

After 3 days of torture, the Mastitis on my left boop cleared up completely yesterday, yipee!!  Here’s what I did :

1)  Let Baby suckle on the left boop longer and also the whole night *looooooong sigh*.
2)  Massaged my left boop with ice-cubes 3 times a day.
3)  Popped Garlic pills with added Lecithin. I read from the kellymom.com breastfeeding site that Lecithin will help unblock the plugged duct.
4)  Popped Vitamin C.
5)  Popped Echinacea tab.
6)  Don’t wear bra, especially tight ones. I find that wearing bra induces the Mastitis in my case. But don’t get me wrong… I still wear bra whenever I jog hehe.  For outings, I have special outfits with built-in bra pads, so I don’t have to wear bra 😀

I also discovered that my recent frequent Mastitis attack was caused by delayed emptying of my boops. This is because I’ve been feeding Baby formula milk, so she no longer suckles so frequently.  I just have a hunch that I will get another attack of Mastitis but I think I am more prepared to handle it the next time.  At the onset of a slight pain in my boop, I will practise the above measures, especially no. #1 above.   I wonder how I am  ever going to wean Baby off my boops, how you tell me?    

I am attacked by a third nasty Mastitis and this time, I am down with fever. The pain and swell this time round is at the top of my left boop. The previous 2 times, it was on the lower left boop. It’s so painful this time that I could barely jog yesterday morning.  Being a determined fitness freak, I went ahead to jog but had to cut short my jogging session. Throughout my jogging session, I had to cup my right hand on the top left boop to reduce the pain… coz when the boop moved, it hurt like hell. When I returned from jogging, I had chills, bodyache, headache and felt feverish. I felt so cold that I had to bathe in warm water, something which I will only do whenever I have fever and also during my confinement. I checked my temperature and it was 38.3 degrees Celsius. I was feeling really lethargic, achy all over, felt like weeping and only wanted to sleep. 

After getting my maid to feed Baby C breakfast, I put her in the playpen and pushed the playpen next to my bed and I just lay there to rest with a blanket over my shoulders.  I also put ice-cubes on the swollen boop but that did not reduce the swelling. I continued to put ice-cubes over my left boob this morning. I also popped 4 Panadol Actifast yesterday and thank God the fever subsided this morning.  However, the pain hasn’t quite yet subsided and I could only do brisk walking instead of running.  I even went to do marketing (by foot) and carried home 2 heavy bags of veggie, fish, bread and take-away noodles!

I did a google search this morning to see how I can treat my Mastitis naturally.  I found out that popping Echinacea, raw garlic and high doses of Vitamin C can help fight the infection.  I have popped an Echinacea tab and some vitamins this morning.  According to the kellymom.com breastfeeding website, taking a Lecithin supplement can also help combat recurrent plugged milk ducts.   I may get my maid to prepare some raw garlic for me to eat them together with my noodles later.   I’ll also get some Lecithin tabs from the pharmacy tomorrow.  I used to take a brand of garlic pills that has added Lecithin, so I’ll get a bottle of that.   I hope I don’t need antibiotics to treat the Mastitis, knowing very well that antibiotics will cause more harm than good to me.