Adventures in nursing...

Bucket and I started out with a great breastfeeding relationship. For the first 10 days, everything was easy and I had no pain. I was cautiously optimistic, knowing that I had never made it to day 10 without having intense pain at the beginning of each feeding.

Well... after those first 10 days, the pain started. First I was just a little sore. Then I started to crack a little on each side. I tried my best to deal with it, using a lot of Lansinoh, pumping a little at the beginning of each feeding to draw it out so it would be easier for him to latch on, those sorts of things.

What I didn't realize was that Bucket had thrush, a terrible yeast infection, in his mouth. I saw the white stuff but thought it was from my Lansinoh and ignored it. Bucket gave it to me and suddenly my skin was bright red and I had more cracks! And the cracks felt like salt was being rubbed into them every time he latched on. The pain got more and more intense and I kept reading up on ways to help with soreness. Finally, after about a week, I realized that we both had thrush.

We went to the doctor and she put him on oral suspension Nystatin and me on Nystatin cream. Unfortunately, the infection was so bad, it didn't work enough. For the first few days, it was improving. But day 10 was just as bad as day 3 so we went back to the doctor. He put Bucket on diflucan which is taken once a day for 10 days and gets rid of the thrush from the inside out instead of just topically like the nystatin. He said I'd be fine as soon as Bucket got rid of it because he'd stop giving it to me. But I was miserable.

Two days later, I went for my 6 week check-up. I told my OB and she put me on diflucan too. First she just put me on 2 pills to be taken one that day and one a week later. But a couple of days after that, I was still so miserable, I called and got them to put me on a 10-day dose, like Bucket.

During those 10 days, I continued trying every cream and ointment I could get my hands on. I was pumping for as many feedings as I could, to try and rest my sore girls a little. The pump still worked them but not quite as hard. I was crying pretty much everyday as I was in pain and felt like nothing was working.

Finally, in the middle of the night, at 6.5 weeks, after fighting this infection for 4 weeks, I couldn't take it any longer. I told Gama to go ahead and buy formula. I was so depressed and beaten... I didn't know what to do. A few hours later, I told him I'd try to nurse sometimes and do formula for other feedings and see what happens. We gave him formula for 24 hours to try and let me heal. I nursed him the next day, once on each side, and felt a lot better. The day after that, I decided to try feeding him twice a day. By the second day doing that, the cracks were all open again and even the pump hurt. Feeling so defeated and so sad, I decided to stop altogether, at least for the time being. I didn't know what else to try and I had to heal.

When I got to the end of my 10-day dose, I called my OB to ask for more because I felt like it wasn't gone yet. She said she didn't want to give me anymore pills and that she thought my skin was probably just still irritated. She told me to use the nystatin mixed with desitin. I tried that for a couple of days, all the while still buying and trying new things, Grapefruit Seed Extract pills to take 3x a day, acidophillus pills 1x a day, Grapefruit Seed Extract spray to put on my skin, Lansinoh, Mustela healing cream, Nipple Nurture cream...

After the 5 days, I was so sad and brokenhearted over not nursing, I had to try it again. My cracks had all healed but my skin was still red and peeling and puffy. I decided to just try once a day on each side. I knew my milk was gone already and that it would be work to get it back. I knew he'd need bottles after but I needed to nurse him. I started doing the right side in the morning and the left at night. It was working OK.

On the third day doing that, we went to his doctor for his 8 week check-up. I told the doctor everything and he said that if I took the diflucan for 10 days, I probably didn't have the yeast anymore and really was irritated most likely. He gave me an antibacterial ointment and told me to use it with cortaid 4 times a day. Within a couple of days, my skin was sooooooooo much better. I was so relieved! The yeast really was gone!

A few days later, I started nursing 4x a day, twice on each side. Each side was getting 12 hours of rest in between feedings. I was doing OK. A few days like that and I moved up to 6x a day. After a couple of days, I went to 7x a day. And after like a day of that, I went back to all nursing. When I was at 6x a day, he stopped needing any formula after nursing. My milk was back. yay!

About a week after everything was back to normal, he got thrush again... I couldn't believe it. My left side started to crack a tiny bit where one of the old cracks had been. I was so scared and so depressed. Immediately, we started medicine on both of us. This time, the oral nystatin worked on Bucket. I was using Lotrimin because I have started to believe that the nystatin was too harsh for my skin. Within a day or two, all signs of yeast were gone. We also started giving him one bottle in the middle of the night to rest my skin a little bit. We kept up the meds and are still doing them today, a week after the yeast disappeared. Charlie's medicine is running out and we will probably only have enough to do it a few more times. But the yeast has been gone for a whole week so we should be OK for now.

If it comes back again, we will get the doctor to call in another prescription for the nystatin and I will go back to my meds too. As long as we catch it early, we should be able to get rid of it. And as long as I can get rid of it without cracking, I will be OK.