Cracked nipple and thrush - what to fix first?

I'm just recovering from an awful bout of mastitis (OMG how painful is that!) and have a severally cracked (read hole) nipple and thrush as well - very pleasant. Anyway the nipple is really quite messy, but what do I try and treat first? the thrush with the Daktarin oral gel or the crack with Lasinoh? I've been airing it as much as possible and putting it in the sun but I'm not really sure what to treat first. I really need it to heal asap, there is no way I can feed off it (i've been expressing off that side). I tried yesterday and the entire top came off again and I was in absolute agony.

Oh and it's nothing to do with attachment...DS was quite unwell (mouth infection) and BF around the clock. My nipple just wasn't use to all that work again!

Hi,

It sounds really painful. And after you have been breastfeeding for so long, so well. Hopefully you can clear up the nipple quite quickly. It is likely that everything that has happened over the last few weeks IS related. It may take a little while to tease out what is chicken and what is egg. Firstly, is the infection in your baby's mouth thrush? I'm thinking not. Do you know what it is? Is it being treated? How? How was the thrush diagnosed? Are you still on the ABs for the mastitis?
Lansinoh is not antibacterial in itself. It can be helpful in keeping nipples supple in the early days, in particular, and many mothers report it to be soothing, but there is no real healing agent in there. Usually nipple cracks heal fairly quickly if there is not infection (fungal or bacterial) because the breastmilk has growth factors and is somewhat antibacterial. Sometimes it is difficult to tell by looking what is going on in there. Some mothers find that an ointment like kenacomb with has a 3 way action (antibacterial, antifungal and steroid) really helps in these situations. You must get it on prescription from the dr, and they will tell you to wipe it off before feeds - in fact, more because it tastes bad than it being particularly bad for the baby.
Hope things are better soon
Warm Regards
Barb

THanks Bard. 2 docs have said that Ned's mouth is thrush but I was totally not convinced and a dentist referred us to a specialist paediatric dentist who we are seeing today. He was pretty horrified at the state of his mouth, mind you it appears to have healed a fair bit. He did think perhaps hand foot and mouth disease but he has no blisters on hands or feet and his sister doesn't have it either, so I doubt it. We should find out soon though. Ok I might see if a can get some Kenacomb cream. The daktarin doesn't seem to be doing too much healing and I'll just ditch the Lasinoh too I think. I'll try and give it a bit more sun.

So many people are pressuring me again to wean because of this. What's the deal???? I got a 10 min lecture from my 70 year old neighbour yesterday how Ned 'will drain me till I'm dead'. Mind you she's ****ed by 10am each day - love her to bits, but just told her I might stop feeding him when he's 20 LOL.......

Soph, hope it gets better really soon! I had a bad case of thrush (was on diflucan for 4 weeks!), and it was really painful and frustrating.

Just wanted to let you know about these great things i used in hospital with DS to help with sore nipples - they are hydrogel pads called Mothers Mates, you put them in the fridge and they are very soothing and help nipples to heal. Probably wouldn't do much for the thrush, so i would only use them to try and get to heal the cracks.

But see what Barb says, she would know best how to get them to heal.

Oh, i also had terrible cracks in my nipples, the LC i saw said sometimes the crack is healed but the dip stays there for a long time, so it looks like it is still cracked even when its not.

Soph good luck getting on top of this. I'd be really interested to hear what the mouth infection turns out to be (get the dentist or your doc to do both viral and bacterial swabs if you can) as it might help solve the mystery.

...My DD (who was 8 at the time) developed similar - horrible horrible blistering ulcers in her mouth only and we had every theory from first episode of cold sore herpes, thrush, trench mouth...and in the end the viral pathology came back that she had chickenpox active in her system (and she had been vaccinated for it too) (!) Which may not relate to your situation at all but thought I'd post as it can be quite hard to tell what the problem is.

Thanks for all the replies....just wanted to update

Marydean - it turned out that Ned had a viral infection, just got it quite badly. It cleared up eventually by itself but wow was it festy for a while!

I finally found a great doc :dance: who did a swab of my nipple - not thrush at all so obviously Ned didn't have thrush either. It was a staph infection. On round 3 of ABs now and kenacomb cream (thanks Barb, it's great!). Nipple still sore and still just expressing on that side. If Ned feeds on it then it just splits right open again so plan is to let it well and truley heal so I can get on top of this.

Barb a quick question - my doc actually rang and spoke to the LC at the hospital for me who said to either do what we are doing, or wean which was the only real option for the mastitis clearing up?????? Correct me if I'm wrong but is this kinda bizarre advice from a LC? Ned won't let me wean him atm anyway so not really an option.

*hugs* Soph. I have just been through the exact same thing! Last week it was found I have a staph infection in my boobs but it has all cleared up now, so have the cracks and we're going great guns!!

That does sound like strange advice from an LC. Just want you to know hun that you are doing a fantastic job and you will be back to full bfing before you know it!

Uhuh! (Barb nods sagely) I thought as much! Yuk, you poor thing, no wonder you were having such a shocking time. This is so often the case - and it's diagnosed as thrush doesn't get better on thrush treatment.
You don't need to wean. I guess LCs are asubset of the rest of us, and some just think "Oh, well, you've fed for 13 mnths - chuck it in"
Barb