I have mastitis and have been on antibiotics for a day and a half now. Can anyone give me advice on how to get rid of it quickly. How long does mastitis last for?
- Cold cabbage leaves in the bra help significantly. I know it’s crazy but it does help. You should be on the mend soon Melissa
- Hear before feeds, cold afterwards. Hot showers and massage any lumps or tender spots. Nurofen & Panadol. Loose bra and tops. If it’s not better in a few days or there is a hard lump that doesn’t improve, get back to your GP for an ultrasound. Sarah
- a hot shower, (as hot as you can stand it), & massaging painful area on boob, continue feeding/expressing. cold pack also helped. mine lasted 3-4 days. Melinda
- Warm shower, massage sore spot. … Take lecithin … Drink buckets of water … Ensure there is nothing causing pressure on breast tissue (bra strap, finger to create breathing space, baby’s chin etc)… Be careful if you use cabbage leaves, they work but they decrease supply for some women (always take out the hard ‘veins’ before placing in bra!) http://kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mother/recurrent-mastitis/Kerryn
- You should try Silverette silver cups. They saved my breastfeeding experience! Silver is an anti microbial and anti inflammatory and it helps to keep bacteria away while it heals. I hope you feel better soon! Anna
- Warm shower and massaging your breast and run the milk down. Midwives do not suggest cabbage leaves anymore. Ayse
- Cold cabbage leaves were a godsend for me. Had it 3 times, always came on during the night. Be careful though as the leaves stained the inside of my feeding tops. Also hot shower, massage and expressing as already suggested. Marika
- Depends how bad it is. It can takes days. You need to keep draining the breast. When I had it, I couldn’t bear to have my bubba on the nipple as it was too painful so I expressed every time I would have fed from that breast. The milk had a funny taste and colour so even though they say its ok to feed it to babies, I dumped it and gave her top up bottle feeds with frozen EBM. Also, my acupuncturist recommends heating and slightly mashing cabbage leaves into a poultice and putting them on boob to help heal. … Not cold cabbage leaves which may soothe the hotness but do nothing to fix the problem. Personally, I can’t vouch for the cabbage either way. Roselea
- Feed lots & express off extra if needed (but remember it’s supply & demand). Massage out lumps under the shower under hot water or use a hot water bottle before feeds to ease discomfort. Cold Cabbage leafs in your bra work well after a feed. Hope you feel better soon! Tanya
- Feed as often as bub wants and pump in between if you can. Before feeding (and during feed) put a heat pack over the blocked duct and once the feed is finished then cool it down (I was in Europe and they said to use ‘quark’ which is a type of cottage cheese. Put some between two layers of gauze and pop on breast over area and use a disposable nappy in bra to hold in place for 10mins. Doing this for each feed got rid of the mastitis in under 24hours each time). Nicole
- Keep the breast emptied! Either feed bub in that side till empty or express. This is a huge help. Massage the area of infection in a hot shower. Get as much rest as possible and keep up the paracetamol every 4 hours. I’ve been there twice now. Nasty business. I found that as I kept pumping the noob after feeds I eventually pulled the puss and infection through and was much better after that. Your supply will drop but keep drinking as much water as you can. I made lactation cookies and munched through those until my supply returned to normal. Good luck. Heather
- Dr told me that it would take 48hrs to start feeling better (which it did) but up to 10 days to completely get out of the system so make sure to take full dose of antibiotics. Apparently it’s quite a deep set infection so if you don’t get on top of it you can even need IV antibiotics! Expressing after a feed also seemed to help as well as Panadol. Not nice at all! Brooke
- I’ve had it twice! Feel for you. Hot packs before tut feed cold packs after. Take Nurofen. Get plenty of rest. Massage. Go to the royal women’s hospital Melbourne website, the have fact sheets, clearly tells you about what to do. I’ll look for link. Kylie
- Heat is great, I had really hot showers and pushed through the blocked ducts over and over again. When I finished I got a vibrating massager (toothbrush, vibrator, massager etc) and rubbed it over the blocked area for ages then put a hot washer on it and tried to push and massage the blockage through as well. It is not comfortable and can hurt but I didn’t end up needing antibiotics as this helped and it took a couple of days. I also tried to feed a lot from the blocked side as this also helps. Good luck, it’s not a nice thing to go through x Kylie
- I had mastitis 3 times with my little one and for me, once I’d taken one or two antibiotic pills I felt remarkably better. If you haven’t seen improvement, go back to your doc. You may not be responding to the kind of anti-b he/she gave you (that also happened to me). Belinda
- I had it when my bub was 6 weeks, it is horrible isn’t it?! The best thing was to get in a warm shower and massage them, kneading towards the nipple to push the stale milk down the ducts and out. The baby sucking is the best way to get it out, also massage toward nipple while baby feeds. Heat packs help to soften the lumps too and again massage massage massage! I can’t remember how long it lasted… just slowly got better. Was less agonising after a few days to a week on antibiotics I think. Michelle
