Mon Combat la Mastitis
I had just come out of the pain of surgery for delivering my baby via C-section in July’2014 and it had just been around fifteen days of breastfeeding my baby when I started feeling hundreds of ants crawling all over my left breast with tiny little stings with each ant that I could imagine and pain in my armpits. What I came to know next was that I had developed high fever with body ache and soreness in both breasts. With the third day I even felt more uncomfortable while sleeping or sitting or eating or drinking with heavy sore breasts.
When I got myself checked, as I had to feed milk to my new born baby, I got to know that I had developed Mastitis and there was no reason or because that could have been pointed to as per the doctor, who said that it could be because of infection from the mouth of baby while feeding, it could be me not keeping by nipples clean, and or could have happened because I was having gestational diabetes that time during pregnancy. The term Mastitis struck to me like a lightening. I had never heard anything like that ever in my life and the fear of worse grabbed me.
On top of that I had a feeling of guilt coming over me that I cannot feed my milk to my own baby which was healthy for her and being in an Indian family I was being judged. Judged for not feeding milk to the baby correctly, judged for not taking care of myself and judged for bringing in a disaster to the family and baby and also judged for adding more money wasted on further treatment required. I cannot even describe the feeling of sitting in front of people with sore breasts continuously hurting and not show to them the feeling of being uncomfortable, because I didn’t want to be judged by them. What I went through was loneliness, continuous judgement from relatives, criticism, post-partum depression, fear of my life, unknown guilt and worry of my child and anger towards society, and doctor who did not guide me enough beforehand of such a disease. Astonishingly, no one in my family or relatives knew about it, or had ever developed it, so all were shocked and did not knew what to do.
To make matters worse, the soreness grew into red pimples and pustules on my breasts on first the left one and then the right one and doctors said that I had to get them operated. There was redness, swelling, pain and heaviness in both my breasts and continuous body ache, fever and nausea. The pustules had become black abscesses. I was put on anti-biotics and steroids immediately and I had been asked to stop feeding my baby. The pustules would burst open, and pink and yellow fluid filled with blood, milk and pus would come out, and I would have to run to washroom to clean it often. I had to keep changing brassiere, tops and dresses too. Looking at both breasts had become difficult for me. Parts of my breast nipples had become black, scaly and rough and the muscle underneath had started to become hard with milk engorged in it. I was sad day by day about my health, my beauty and again feared judgement from my husband too on same. What will happen now, what has happened to me, and why me, will he ever look at me again? All these questions popped in my mind.
The other dilemma was that doctors suggested surgery and I could not imagine how the doctors would do surgery on my breasts, in fact I was from biology background, but still couldn’t figure out what the procedure would involve. When it finally happened, they explained me that a piece of breast will be cut out and soon it will grow back into healthy muscle in one month. At this time, I was scared out of hell with what was going to be done to my body. I had not left a single website and videos on mastitis, but at that time, there was very few contents on social media and I couldn’t find much. I had to ice compress the breasts, and even pump out milk as much as possible daily in spite of all pustules, pain and hurt. It was like rollers crushing my breasts every day to pump out a drop of milk, filled with blood and pus. The doctors even punched in injections in the nipples to drain the pus out. Some helpful videos even suggested placing cool cabbage leaves on breasts to dry out the milk inside and kill bacterial infection but that did not help me.
For those who don’t know, Mastitis is an inflammation of breast tissue that sometimes involves an infection. Mastitis can occur with or without the presence of infection. As it progresses, mastitis can cause the formation of a breast abscess. The inflammation results in breast pain, swelling, warmth, tenderness and redness. You might also have high fever and chills. Mastitis most commonly affects women who are breast-feeding and also called as lactation mastitis. It is A painful infection of the breast tissue, so you can understand that it is not easy for people who go through it. Possible causes are a blocked milk duct or bacteria entering the breast from the mouth of the baby or otherwise. It usually occurs within the first three months of breast-feeding. You may also have discharge from your nipple or feel a hard lump in your breast. Severe cases of mastitis can be fatal if left untreated.
Mastitis tips & treatment:
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1. Consult doctor and take antibiotics. If you have an infection, a 10-day course of antibiotics is usually needed
- Consult doctor and take pain relievers. Your doctor may recommend an over-the-counter pain reliever, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) or ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others)
- Pump out milk from the breasts every two hours and throw it
- Consult doctor for invasive procedures to remove pus, like Injection puncture and removal of pus from nipples via same
- Surgery for removal of infected tissues or abscess, involving cutting breast part which is affected and removing it (Surgery is done under complete anaesthesia as breast muscle cut pain nobody can bear with local anaesthesia and also after surgery the Breast muscle grows back in 15 to 30 days, making it look almost normal)
- Psychological consultation for body disfiguring and apprehensions if required
- Balanced healthy diet and multivitamins and lots of water
- Get a mammogram done before pregnancy, during and after pregnancy for precaution and wear sports bra for support
- Keep breasts clean and after bath apply nipple care cream to soothe all baby teeth skin hurt
- Do try out the cabbage magic, it does help some ladies, cabbage leaves can be placed in bra covering entire breasts for whole day to help in drying out the milk inside
Finally, when I went in OR, I was praying for my life and trying to show everyone in family that I was fine. I hid my grief, and fear and held up a strong face. Which later I released did more wrong, as I created stress in my body of same. I had to let it all out. This episode also made me scared of getting pregnant again. The doctor did the surgery under full anaesthesia and I got up after surgery, totally bandaged on chest with the instructions that I need to keep coming every day for dressing. I felt a sense of loss, loss of my body part, loss of my beauty, loss of self-worth and even pain and hurt of this situation. So, the next day I was released from hospital with injections, more medicines to pop and a whole lot of guidance on keeping the dressing dry, so no shower till couple of days.
When I came to hospital after 3 days for getting the bandage opened and first dressing, I was shocked out of my life and I literally screamed in the dressing room. The breast piece that was cut, that whole area was left open by the doctor and not stitched, I was able to see all blood vessel and nerves and muscles inside my body. That view of my own body shook me to the core and even though I had studied biology my whole life, and did experiments with scientists in labs, and studied medical, I was freaking out.
As much as I was getting relieved that the worst was over, I was again scared to death. How would I manage my body, cut pieces open, can more infection get it, how would I keep it clean, and the excruciating pain again which doctors said was part of growing the muscle back? I had to keep doing dressing twice daily on my own, to avoid further shame of getting it done in hospital by someone else, as why should anyone else touch my breasts to put medicine on them and why would my family understand that I needed care in that direction to heal, and that I was not strong enough to open bandage and see myself cut open, but I anyways did it as part of going through hell multiple times every day in silence in my washroom. From concerns of my health, it later became issues of shame between my family and relatives. After fifteen days, I slowly healed and my breast muscles grew back, with a scar that remained on both showing the surgery cut marks for forever. I am still grateful to doctors for saving my life.
Spiritual lessons I learned from this incident and infection was to go slow, and remove fears and insecurities from my mind and body. My angels were teaching me to love myself more and in a better way and not to feel controlled or bad about me. I am today, grateful for all healing, but I wish no women to go through all this, in any way. I wish as I have healed from it all, so would you, if you are affected. Don’t sit with it and contact medical help as soon as possible because it can become deadly too for some. Always get your breasts and nipples and blood sugar checked if you are pregnant. In the end I am grateful to God to help me heal, help me learn my lessons, help me understand importance of my life and health and making me strong.
You deserve to be who you are, and raise your child as you want, and feel good about it. Also, avoid taking criticism on parenting or on yourself to heart because it does not matter what others think of you and or your life. What matters is you, your baby and your good health. Live one day at a time, remove apprehensions of pregnancy if you have from your mind and learn to say No to others if required for your good health and mental peace.
Love and Light to all !!!
