Friday, August 1, 2008

Weirdest breastfeeding experience ever

Two months ago Cooper had just started really eating solid food & started nursing less often. My milk supply took a while to catch up to the change & I wound up getting a really bad clogged duct. The clog was very close to my nipple & the whole side of my breast felt like a rock from my nipple almost to my armpit. It was pretty awful & Cooper worked & worked at it & then started refusing to nurse on that side. He's never refused to nurse & I'm pretty sure he wasn't getting anything, or was getting very little. It seemed to be getting worse & worse & I got a fever. In the middle of the night I became convinced that it was not going to get better & I'd have to have it dealt with surgically or something (yeah, I get a little dramatic in the middle of the night when I'm not feeling well & deprived of sleep; things always seem a little better the next morning).
Anyway, I finally got Cooper back on the job, & I pumped to try to dislodge the clog too. While I was pumping, a milk blister appeared. The clog eventually improved; it came & went for a couple weeks, but eventually it was gone completely. But the milk blister stayed.
I tried everything - a warm compress before nursing, olive oil on a cotton ball in my bra, antibiotic ointment, & eventually oral antibiotics. Everything seemed to help & the blister would disappear for a few hours or a day, but then come right back. There were even several times when I would see breastmilk coming from the blister (sometimes when Cooper was nursing, or when I expressed afterward, and it even leaked a couple times). Once there was even a touch of blood. Every time I'd see milk, or the blister would seem to disappear I'd be relieved, but then it would be right there again. That went on for at least two months.
Then one day I was nursing Cooper on that side & I suddenly felt light-headed. It came on very suddenly & I immediately thought I must be dehydrated. I was afraid for a couple seconds that it might lead to me fainting, but after 30 seconds the feeling just disappeared & I felt fine. Then I got a sharp pain in the nipple & Cooper pulled off. I saw milk & a little blood coming from the blister & it hurt a lot. Cooper went back to nursing again for a few minutes & then was done. I thought it was really odd & wondered if the light-headed feeling was somehow related to the blister. It seems kind of crazy that it would be, but the timing made me think they must be related. Then a couple days later the blister was gone. Just gone. And it hasn't come back. I can't even tell where it was.
Very odd, but I'm relieved that it's gone.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OW - Just, ow..

Anonymous said...

I am glad these things don't happen to me!