Thank you for your suggestions. I receive Lactnet in digest form, so I may be leaving some questions unanswered. 1. The mother has been on Augmentin (oral for the 1st diagnosis of mastitis), IV Cefzil when 1st drained abscess resulted in secondary mastitis in other part of breast, then (per what I understood the mother to say) IV Omnicef before and during the 2nd abscess incised and drained, then oral Augmentin. She does not know what IV form she will be given beginning tonight. 2. She did try to keep the affected breast "going" via expressing since it was too painful to have the baby at the breast. Through all of the trauma and infection, the supply dropped dramatically and she is only able to visualize the leaking milk at the incision site and a few drops at the nipple. She is unable to express anything. This is a mother who has nursed or expressed every 2-3 hours around the clock for weeks to turn things around and her stress level is, let's just say nicely, a bit high. For me to suggest that she start pumping the affected side every 2 hours right now just may send her over the edge, especially now that someone has raised the question about weaning completely. Both the family doc and myself encouraged her to keep the affected side flowing and she did so heroically until she was unable to express anything during the last few days. 3. Trust me, trust me, trust me on this...this client had and has yeast. When I first saw her, both breasts were the classic shiny-pink and she was crying through every "feeding"...she couldn't even call it "nursing". Her baby had a lovely white mouth and a yeasty diaper rash. The mother also had a horrific yeast infection vaginally *and* rectally. She was finally able to *nurse* without crying after a week on Diflucan w/ no other changes made to latch, etc. With all of the antibx she has been on and continues to be on, I think the yeast battle will be ongoing. 4. Biopsy done--I believe it was an incisional (not fine needle or tru-cut) biopsy while draining the 2nd abscess. The abscess was so deep (identified by sono) that it required general anesthesia, at least per her family doc and the general surgeon. 5. This mother also has a cyst located underneath and bit offset to the right of her areola. By sono, all docs involved do not believe that the cyst is affecting milk flow. 6. OK, here's another thought that a friend of mine who had a grad degree in pathology suggested...mycoplasmas. My limited understanding is that they are very hard to culture and often go undetected. She had very clumpy, stringy milk initially and some of you suggested that it was either yeast and/or the infection. Now I wonder if mycoplasmas could have been/are the culprit? I think they're sometimes called "stealth bacteria". I'm not a drug expert, so I wonder if the antibx above would be essentially useless in this case. Perhaps she had/has some "normal" mastitis that these usual antibx kick down initially, but the real bug is simply continuing to do its nasty work. 7. Oh, yes, the incision for this 2nd abscess (the 1st was more toward the surface and a wick was used)...a deep horizontal incision was made and I believe that more ducts have been affected than had a vertical incision been made??? Am I way off base on this? It also makes me wonder if *that's* why production has dropped since this 2nd abscess was drained...enough milk ducts were severed??? Shannon??? I'll await more help and questions. This has been such a challenging situation that I desperately want this mother to feel supported in her desire to keep nursing on the left side. Short of a mastectomy, all ideas are welcome. If you respond to the list, would you also copy me at [log in to unmask] and either give or revoke permission to forward to the family doc and mother, please. Thankfully in KS, Rebecca DeYoung Daniels, MBA, RD, LD, IBCLC, RLC & MOM to 5 *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html