The saga begins with burning breasts. And I mean burning in the sense that deep in your breasts you are having deep contractions, similar to the ones you have when you are about 9cm dilated. Serious, serious pain.
I contracted thrush, which is a fungal infection to the nipples and often to your child's mouth probably within the fist few days of my milk "coming in." My nipples looked like minced meat and I was having trouble nursing, my baby was crying and my breasts were hurting. Once I got him eating properly (which is a story in itself in another post) I realized my thrush was so bad that after feeding him, especially in the morning, I would lie in bed for about a half an hour and "recover." It was TERRIBLE.
Here are the tried and true remedies and cures. Rinse your nipples after each feeding with apple cider vinegar mixed with water then follow with a spray of sovereign silver (colloidal silver) and then smear on coconut oil. Swab baking powder mixed with some water in the baby's mouth after each feeding to normalize the PH of the mouth. Also take acidophiles, biotin, and put a bit of acidophiles on the baby's tongue once a day. Remove sugar and yeast from your diet, and for sometime also remove carbs.
The treatments were all wonderful, however, my thrush was so bad it was DEEEP inside the breasts, in the ducts. So deep in fact I wished I had a stick to reach inside and itch and relieve the pain. So I called my midwife who put me on diflucan (floconozle) the dosage that worked in the end was 200mg-400mg to start and 100mg each day there after for 10 days.
On the anti-fungal medication, I literally felt the fungus MOVE OUT OF MY BODY and within two days nursing started to not hurt. I was amazed, wished I had tried this sooner.
Now in retrospect I realize a few things. After giving birth and the stress of trying to get back into the swing of things, having your life just like you want it, and with no sleep, causes your body to react. Mine reacted to the stress of a newborn with a thrush outbreak. After all the medications and remedies, it is clear to me that this was indeed thrush but it was also my reaction to the stress, making it that much harder to clear up.
SO RELAX! Do all the above and try to understand that until your baby is three months old there is NOTHING to talk about when it comes to feeling like your old self again.
A visit to my chiropractor helped as well.
