Hi, Jay and I just went through this with a women..we called it 'hole the size of a pea on nipple' NOTHING we did helped the pain or healing. She hung there like a champ and the baby got 100% breastmilk..she pumped a lot and finger fed a lot. She would try to latch him only to re injure herself. It was discovered that her nipples were shaped as a flower. I've never seen anything like this.. the tip of her nipple actually folded out when the baby fed, and then folded back down and in so that all that was seen when the baby hadn't been on in a while we a very tiny hole. If I hadn't seen the nipples just after feeding I would have thought that the nipple only had a small fissure and she was on her way to healing, but she really wasn't. One thing that did help was blow drying right after feeding on a warm setting then newmans nipple cream. Because of the nipple terrain after the nipple was done it folded down so the skin under that folding was tender, yeast friendly and sore. Jay said at three months post partum this should resolve. It did. The day the baby turned three months the mother called crying...we're feeding 100% it doesn't hurt anymore!!! I recently spoke to a plastic surgeon who told me that nipples change shapes with consistent pulling. This is the only thing I can come up with that made this difference, three months of pumping and partial breastfeeding. Hope this helps. Christy -- Christy Whiteside *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html