ouch!

[Zumbi]

I need some help! I have had a wonderful breastfeeding relationship with my first son who is now 5.5 months old. For the past 3 weeks though, my nipples have been incredibly sore and have little tiny cuts all over them. I have no idea how to fix this and it is driving me into intense frustration and despair. I don't think that it is thrush because my son doesn't have any white spots in his mouth and I don't have any breast pain, just nipple pain. He has been teething up a storm though and had started to do the whole clamp down and grind thing around the time my nipples started to hurt. At first I thought that that was the problem, but he has drastically reduced the number of times that he bites down and the soreness persists and has gotten a little worse. Sometimes I think that his latch has changed, and other times I think its fine and how it has always been. There are times when I think that it is a bit shallow of a latch and his mouth isn't open quite wide enough, but if I try to correct this either by tickling his lips with the nipple or pulling down on his chin while I offer the breast, he just closes his mouth more once attached. I don't want to fight him. It kills me to see him upset so I don't like the idea of just not letting him latch on every time he does this. Besides I don't even know if this is what is going on or if his latch if fine and there is another issue. Please help! I'm at my wits end.

[ewe+lamb]

Hi, the teething could have alot to do with whats going on, clamping down etc, you could put breastmilk onto your nipples to help with healing, if that doesn't do it then you may have to look into the thrush thing a bit more, thrush can come in all shapes and forms and just because you ds has no sign of it in his mouth doesn't mean to say you don't have it. You can ask him to re-position his latch or say that you would like him to let go so that he can latch on better and then take him off, babies understand most things we say so explaining to him what's happening may make him happier to let go in the first place. Hope that this helps a little and that you manage to sort out your problem, one last thing - if you haven't already try to go to a La Leche League meeting the support and information is invaluable to breastfeeding mothers, Leaders are trained to look out for these sort of things and should be able to help you more when face to face!