Nursing, purple/bruised nipples, worst pain in my life due to cold weather...

[ellairiesmom]

Aggghhhh!!!!! I know there have been some threads on this...but I felt I needed some special attention

DD just turned 2 & is nursing for naps & bedtime...& a couple mornings a week when we wake up. The pain has been bad the whole pregnancy but since fall hit & the cold air moved in...it is awful. Unbearable. And now not just when nursing...getting out of the shower or going out to the car is the most excruciating pain I have ever felt no matter how many layers I have on...when it gets too cold anywhere, I immediately feel like daggers are being driven into my breasts.

Today, I looked down & my nipples are purple. I think I kind of noticed it recently but didn't really focus too much on it but today-I really looked & it's bad. Especially the side she is mostly nursing from nowadays. On the underside, it looks like a major purple bruise. I showed DH & he said it is def a strong purple color-it's not in my head.

I got nervous about Raynaud's??? Could this just be a normal nipple/pregnancy/nursing/winter reaction or something more?

[XanaduMama]

Definitely sounds like Raynaud's...or at least some version of vasospasm. I had it when ds was about 5 weeks old--TORTURE!!

So maybe related to pregnancy (changes in blood pressure etc? Hormones?). I see from kellymom that "Some maternal medications have been associated with vasospasm, including oral contraceptives," so yeah--it makes sense.

Vitamin B6 supplements can help, and magnesium is supposed to be good too. Stay warm and covered as much as possible.

[MamaMonica]

Moved to Breastfeeding Beyond Infancy.

It does sound like Raynauds. I had that and it was so painful- stress makes it worse, too. Please keep yourself warm, that helps the most.

[PatioGardener]

Jack Newman has a really good handout about vasospasm/Raynauds. www.drjacknewman.com

[megviolet]

What?! ... wow, i've had the blue/purple painful nipples on and off since DD was born... they are really bad again now that i'm pregnant.
I had a doctor mention raynauds to me, casually, years ago about my hands and fingers being blue so often.... but never heard about it for nipples. Crazy. Off to do some research.

Sorry to hijack your thread LOL. Best wishes to you.

[LCBMAX]

So sorry to hear this. I agree, Raynaud's is top of the list for likely causes. I had it just with regular non-pregnant nursing til my son was about 6 months, and I can't even bear to remember how much it hurt. I can still get blanched nipples during hard times, especially altered latch during teething. As pp said, keep warm, and use as much time as you can in mind-body techniques, especially just before nursing. Visualize the tiny blood vessels of your nipples just staying at their perfect diameter, not contracting, not expanding. Tell them to maintain that diameter as your toddler latches on, keep visualizing as you nurse, before and during showers, and other temperature changes. I'd never fault you for weaning partially or fully due to this pain, and I'd give you the highest medal of honor that nobody should have to earn if you keep nursing while this goes on. Consider also that it may just be a certain aspect of the pregnancy that is stimulating this, so perhaps it is very temporary. The worst part of Raynaud's is that the pain increases your stress which increases the pain! Ninja mommy skills required to get through this, and I wish you all of them.

BTW, if the purplish area is limited to one spot, and doesn't improve when you are most distant from the last nursing session or other stressor, also consider whether you may have gotten bruised from an altered latch, even when you didn't notice it. When my son started getting his molars at 18 months, I woke up one morning and discovered that I had too much pain on his favorite night time side to nurse on that side at all while side lying. But during that night, I had had no awareness of any special pain. I had to switch for a MONTH to left-in-the-day, right-at-night.

The things no one warns us about!

[Amber Lion]

I had vasospasms for a long time after my DD was born (and now suspect slight Raynauds as a possibility) and what saved my titties was little rice packs for my nipples. My midwives made them in the shape of breast pads and I'd heat them up before a nursing session, stick them in between my thighs to keep them warm, then put them against my nipple the minute my DD would unlatch and keep them there. They would cool down slowly and I would avoid the horrible pain of the cold air triggering the vasospasms.

Now that the weather has changed I've noticed the vasospasms are coming back if I'm not careful to make sure my nips never hit the cold air, but since I'm now nursing a toddler running all over the place the rice pads aren't as easily used.

Hope you figure out a way to get relief... this pain is one of the worst (worse than labor, I swear!), so many s to you!