Mastitis - My Experiece

Mastitis? I never heard of it before until I experienced them myself few months back. That was when I consulted my doctor for which I thought as normal fever due to plugged duct. What puzzled me was, plugged duct can occur even when my baby is already 10 months old?

At first it was just soreness of Miss B, with few lumps. So I was confident that it was just blogged duct or in Malay term known as ‘bengkak susu’. What I did, I continued feeding my baby, offering the affected as well. Thank God it was just one side, cannot imagine if they were both!

The next few days, I started having fever. Being the type that hates taking medication, I tried to ignore them. But to the extend when I couldn’t stand them anymore, I just took panadol to reduce the fever. It worked I tell you..but only for few hours..After that the chillness came and I continued having fever again. I recall the worst was over a night; I started feeling the coolness even when the fan is off. Then suddenly my temperature soared I guess reaching 40 degree and my mind was actively deliberating I don’t know what until it was difficult to differentiate between dreams and reality..Yup, was that bad.. and worry my hubby alright..hihihi

It was Chinese New Year and most of the clinics at hubby’s hometown was closed, so I got to bare with the pain with the help of panadol until the day clinic was open. Besides taking the panadol, to ease the pain I simply use the modern ‘tungku’ to poultice while gently massage the affected area to help with the milk flow. Immediately after that, I would nurse my baby and it help to reduce the soreness.

The morning I planned to visit the clinic, I noticed there’s area of redness and swelling of the affected area becomes worsen.. It worries me very much, so we straight away went to see the doctor hoping she could give me the cure of this ailment. That was then I knew that the redness is a sign that Miss B is infected and that I shouldn’t nurse my baby from the affected side. According to the doctor, there’s no specific medication for this and the panadol that I took just help to put the fever off, that’s explain why the fever kept coming back after few hours. So I was prescribed with two types of antibiotic to be taken for a week time.

After taken the antibiotics for almost 3 days, it did put some relief to the pain I had to endure, and my fever stop right after that. As the doc advised, I did not feed my baby on the affected side, but rather continuously pump them and simply threw them away. How heartbreaking it was to just pour them out just like that, which means fresh milk supply for my baby was lesser then. That would also mean my milk supply from one side will reduce as it did not get direct feeding. I was somehow not satisfied with the fact that I could just nurse my baby from the non-infected side and that there was still some feeling of discomfort on the other side, so I went for a second opinion.

What happened next? To be continued next episode..heheh..