Thrush? WTH???

[Curlita]

All last week I was treating Conrad and I for thrush with grapefruit seed extract. I swabbed him before feedings, and me after, sterilized all pacis and the mylicon droppers, etc. etc. etc. He started out the week with a few faint patches of white on his tongue. Well, after a week of treatment he now has a complete CARPET on his tongue.

What the hell????

We have an appointment with the lactation consultants tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to what they have to say, but I am also really perplexed. And grossed out by his furry little tongue. Poor kid.

[*Lindsey*]

nak

that sucks erica! gentian violet? black walnut extract?

s

[mommybytheWord]

I had to do that Gentian Violet with our last child. Gives a new name to Purple Nerple!!!!

[Isaac'sMa]

Oh, this sucks! Are you still hurting too? Geez, I hope not. Maybe they will recommend GV or Nystatin. Get some bibs you don't mind trashing if you have to do the GV. It can be messy. I'm sorry you're still dealing with this.

[Curlita]

My nipples/boobs still hurt, but I think it might be due to some sloppy latching during late night feedings and some over enthusiastic breast compression. I'm going to get some gentian violet... I was hoping to skip that because I am such a klutz that I KNOW something is going to wind up permanently purple that I would rather not have permanently purple.... I'll let you all know what the LC has to say tomorrow.

[*Lindsey*]

Any news, Erica?

FTR, I had good luck getting GV stains out of clothes with Spray and Wash.

[Curlita]

Well, the LC definitely thinks he has thrush. I told her about our treatment plan and she said that we should be swabbing him AFTER the feedings instead of before, since that is a better way to keep the stuff on his tongue. Otherwise it's just getting rinsed off when he nurses. She thought my nipples looked okay and recommended that I keep doing the grapefruit seed extract and do a combination of GSE and nystatin with Conrad. So nystatin 4 times a day and GSE the rest of the time, right after feedings.

She also said that pain from the thrush could be contributing to the short, frequent feedings.

Sooooo... that's the plan. She said that the latch looked okay, too, so I'm less worried about that and ready to chalk up most of our nursing problems to thrush.

Erica versus Thrush, Round 2, commences now.

The great thing was that she weighed Conrad before and after a feed and we found that he is sucking down about 100 cc of breast milk in about 15 minutes. Talk about efficient.