I am 6 weeks postpartum, have been breastfeeding baby and pumping the excess as needed. Out of nowhere last week my nipples started getting very sore and red and I was experiencing pain while breastfeeding and pumping (worse when breastfeeding). I would use Lanolin nipple cream religiously to try and help but seemed like nothing was working.

I noticed that my babygirl was having “milk tongue”, which all my kiddos had while breastfeeding, but hers looked excessive/thicker than I remembered with my others.

The pain in my nipples wasn’t going away, and everytime she breastfed it hurt so bad to latch even though she has a great latch. I would also get shooting pains while she was breastfeeding.

I started getting fissures on my left nipple, which is the side she preferred to feed on increasing the pain each feed.

In between feeds/pumps, my nipples would hurt so bad, even clothing touching them was painful and it felt like a boxer had used my boobies as punching bags. There was no redness or splotchiness, no hard spots or anything that would signal clogged milk ducts so I just kept an eye on it.

I told my husband that I think she might have thrush or something but wasn’t sure so I said I’d keep an eye on it.

It persisted over the course of a couple days, getting worse each day before I finally said fuck it and took me and babygirl to urgent care since she was still having the excessive “milk tongue” that wouldn’t go away when wiped with a damp washcloth.

My suspicion was correct, babygirl has oral thrush and I was diagnosed with bacterial mastitis (I giggled when the nurse said nipple thrush so she corrected and said the proper term of Candida Mastitis- nipple thrush sounded lighter 🤣🤣)

So we’re on antibiotics now: oral drops for her and pills for me. Hoping the pain starts to decrease and my nipples start healing now that we’re on antibiotics but we’ll see how long that takes.

But anyways, just sharing in case someone is in a similar situation and questioning themselves. If you start hurting while feeding out of nowhere, it could be nipples thrush (Candida Mastitis) 🥴