Mastitis is often an indication of stress & a lifestyle that is busy with not enough rest.  This tends to bring down the level of immunity of the mother to an oncoming infection.  Well, for me, I think the other trigering factor could have been Timmy's little broken front tooth that somehow caused me about 3 cuts on each breast the day before.  Broken skin is an easy route for bacteria to enter.  And well... there are lots of bacteria in a little toddler's mouth!  Now, to minimise it, I try to get Timmy to drink water before he nurses.  He happily agrees because he wants to nurse!!  *haah*  And to further minimise risks of infection, if I do get any cuts, I would try to heal the cuts as quickly as possible!

What happened was sudden.  The night before - a Saturday night, I felt tired and on Sunday I just could not get up from bed at all.  Not until 6pm in the evening!!!  I was so *zonked* that I was not conscious of much happening around me.  Timmy just dutifully appeared by my side every so often asking to nurse and then ran away to play most of the day.  Realised in the evening that I had 39.5 deg fever and it came to mind that I had been having a sore breast the whole night and day.  And also a sore arm & leg. Flu-like symptoms. The breast just felt like one big bruise, painful to touch but not hard and no clogged ducts.  Thankfully so as Timmy had been nursing frequently from the affected breast.  Amazing too because to me, the milk on the affected breast tasted really off and to me quite salty.

I felt a little bit better after a day of rest & loooong sleep, but was still tired and had the red swollen sore breast for another 5 days. Running my own business also meant responsibilities that could not be put down. Throughout my sickness, I was going to the office everyday despite advice from my Lactation Consultant for bedrest.  I also needed to bring the older 2 children Sarah & Daniel to school as my husband was not in the country. Now you all know why it is much easier to be a salaried employee and just take sick leave.  And it is much easier when the children are not in Primary school yet because then you can simply just not bring them to school !  For me, it made sense to bring Daniel even though he is only in Nursery because his kindergarten is just near Sarah's Primary school.

To share with all of you, some measures I took to alleviate & heal the mastitis:

a) sleep when I could - quite difficult, really.  But it helped that Timmy came to nurse on the bed so I could continue to rest.
b) Panadol for the 1st 3 days to keep fever down, also that excruciating headache that came with the high fever.

c) don't wear bra.  When I went out, I was happy that I had my Cami Bras. These looked much better than sleep bras under "going-out" clothes but did provide support while at the same time having super-comfy & stretchy material that does not restrict breast tissue in anyway. Soft & stretchy enough for my swollen breast *sob* and it did not irritate the sensitive skin on my affected breast.  One of the days, I wore my Spaghetti Strap Tank Top because it had a built-in bra and I did not need to wear bra at all with that!  But it was a little tight-fitting with my one huge swollen breast.

d) massage gently - had little success expressing milk though

e) hot compress with the warm packs at least 4 to 5 times a day.  YMicrowave for 1 minute.  This heating pad is flexible and can mold to any shape of your body, and in this case breast.  The heat will help in healing and also helps to some extent in killing the bacteria.  You can make a very simple rice pack at home by simply taking a clean old sock (long ones are good).  Fill it with uncooked rice grains (whatever kind - brown, white, wheat), and then knot it at one end, and voila, a rice pack is all ready for you to warm up or freeze!  Or ... you can use commercially available warm/cold packs like the Therapy Packs.

f) cold packs & cold cabbage.  The cold cabbage will alleviate the engorgement if any.  Also the coldness of the cold icepacks & the cold cabbage would help relieve the pain from the soreness - in between the applications of hotpacks.  The rice packs can also be frozen (in a ziplock bag), in the freezer and used as a cold pack.  Again, you may use Therapy Packs. 

g) lots of fluids.  I downed lots of Icy Cold Lime Juice & Hot Echinacea Root Tea.  I had an immense craving for cold lime juice, so I guess it must have been what's good for me!  Echinacea Root Infusion is known to help fight infection.  You could also boil some garlic to eat neat.  Or boil a pot of ginger tea, add lime and honey and drink it regularly to fight infection.  This is a great remedy for cold/flu too.

h) went on high dosages of Vit C & took Echinacea tablets & tea to help fight infection.

i) continue to nurse frequently.  Nursing frequently helps the milk ducts stay relatively empty to avoid risk of breast absess.  Also the increased milk flow would mean increased blood flow to the breast and help enhance the healing process.  Flow of milk out of the breast ducts also mean that the bacteria or germs are being expelled from the breast.  Baby/child will not be affected by the milk because they would have come into contact with the bacteria which would have been present in the milk even before mother shows any symptoms of illness.  The only problem would be whether the child is willing to nurse with milk that tastes a bit "off". Thankfully for me, Timothy did not think anything of the funny tasting "milk' and happily nursed away many times a day.  If not for his regular nursing, I think the situation would have gotten even worse!