bump on breast?

[jerabelle]

i suddenly have a 'bump' on my left breast that looks somewhat like a pimple. it's right beside my nipple and hurts like heck! left side had been painful for a couple of days and then this suddenly appeared yesterday. nursing/pumping on that side is very sensitive. i find myself avoiding feeding my 6wo son from the left side, which makes me worry about my milk supply.
what could this 'bump' be (clogged duct, infection, i'm clueless...)? first time mama, so dont have a lot of experience to go off of.

*please help, any information appreciated*

[KSDoulaMama]

Is it a milk blister? Sometimes a thin layer of skin covers the milk pore and doesn't let the milk out. They can be carefully popped so that the milk blockage doesn't lead to mastitis.

Or, could it be an inflamed Montgomery gland? (They are the tiny bumps around your areola that secrete an oil that protects your nipples, among other things.)

[Heba]

This page has info on milk blisters (sometimes called "blebs"), and also friction blisters which may bs another possibility. http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom/nipplebleb.html
Hope you get it sorted out soon!

[boomer78]

I second the milk blister. I had one when dd was about 5 or 6 months and boy did it hurt! It was white on top and looked just like a pimple and the first time I popped it some milk actually squirted out. It kept coming back for so long, a few weeks for sure and nursing was very painful the whole time. What helped was a hot shower before nursing on that side. I kept peeling the skin off of it while taking a hot shower because it seemed to help with the pain when it was 'opened'. Some days it was bigger and more white and almost looked like a patch of white skin and some days it was smaller and not as white. Sorry for TMI! It did eventually went away when I thought it never would.