Help! Plugged ducts while weaning?

[claritygolden]

I need to wean my 6 month old in preparation for some very serious surgery I have to do. Believe me, I have thoroughly researched my options and while it may be technically possible to continue BFing, I simply cannot handle it physically and emotionally. I've given as much as I can to this and am proud of how far I've come, and after a lot of soul searching I've decided weaning is the best option for my son and for me.

On to my question. I started weaning this week and dropped one feeding. I only use one breast per feeding, so this means I am not using one breast from 9am to 8pm. Things were fine for the first couple days (lots of fullness but nothing I couldn't manage), but this morning I noticed I'm getting a lump. This isn't totally rare for me--I tend to get them about once a month. My normal procedure is warm compresses, massage, etc. and it usually works fine. But this time I don't know what to do! Should I pump immediately, even if that means starting the whole weaning process over again? Or should I wait until the next feeding (even if that's many hours away) and use my usual methods to try and work it out?

I suspect this is an issue that's going to come up more than once during the weaning process. Thanks for any insight.

[annettemarie]

As per the forum guidelines, I am going to move this out to the main breastfeeding forum.