I am one of the self-declared record-holders for having plugged ducts of
various sorts and severity - average 1/day of the easy-to-fix kind, and
one/week of the more painful kind, with a bout of mastitis every six weeks or
so thrown in.  (My daughter weaned at 31 months, so we survived).
My many ideas of things to look at and things to try in no particular order:
1.  Stop shaving underarms and/or using deodorant & antiperspirant
2.  Look at salt intake (I think this was mentioned before)
3.  Drink L-O-T-S of water -- not juice or milk or coffee or tea or soda
4.  Watch the caffiene consumption
5.  Check the tips of the nipples several times/day or after every nursing --
if you see a plug - like a white grain of sand at the outlet of a duct, express
it by using great, yet not painful, pressure at the base of the nipple.  It
might not come out easily - keep trying, use different angles...
6.  For spaghetti plugs, keep expressing with pressure only on the part of the
breast that is related to the plugged duct until the milk runs free and
continues to do so.  Often there are many spaghetti plugs in there.  This
expression might need to be repeated several times over the course of the day.
I'm talking hand expression here, too.
7.  No bras at night, no sleeping on the breasts, no underwires day or night.
8.  My bad plugs always seemed to come on Monday.  I assume that the minor
disruption of the nursing on cue caused by trying to wait until the end of the
church service the day before caused problems for us.   I didn't leave her in
the nursery, but wasn't really comfortable nursing her in church, either.
9.  Try for a backrub just before and/or during nursing the baby.

These repeated plugs are very demoralizing, I know!

Beth Hilleke
2425 Spring Garden St.
Charleston, SC 29414-5535
803-556-6131
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