The Bean-a-thon

Grr. This is now the second time that I’ve gotten mastitis. Mastitis is an inflammation of the breast tissue. It affects the fatty tissues, so there is no danger to the baby or your milk. It just hurts a lot and can lead to infection, which REALLY sucks.

Symptoms of mastitis

• Breast soreness
• Redness in the skin
• Hard lumps in your breast
• A fever
• Flu-like symptoms, feeling like total crap

Treatment -

1. Give yourself breast massages to loosen any clogged milk ducts (which cause the mastitis in the first place)
2. Soak affected breast in warm water and epsom salts 2x a day
3. Wear a good bra - I cannot believe the difference a good bra makes!!
4. Okay, so some people think it’s better to wear no bra at all. Do whatever you need to reduce the pain.
5. Don’t sleep on your breasts or smoosh them in any other way
6. Try this homeopathic remedy: Take a dose of phytolacca. Three hours later, take a dose of Hepar sulphuris. Three hours later, take another of phytolacca and continue alternating on three hour cycles. I’m trying this for the first time and will report back.
7. Of course if you get really sick, or you don’t feel like dealing with all this other stuff, you can go to a doc and get some antibiotics. I did that 2 weeks ago, though, so I’m trying the homeopathic way instead.

My friend S who has a 5 year old son says she got mastitis a gazillion times. So it’s not one of those infections that leaves you alone once you kick it, alas.

Okay not the most glamorous of topics, but the one thing you learn early is that motherhood is all about managing effluvia.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 6:49 pm and is filed under breastfeeding, motherhood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.