Sounds like it's milk solids related to plugged ducts where the liquid or whey is reabsorbed and the solids come out like a thread. No problem for baby to consume it. Not dangerous. Just looks strange. Best to do all possible to remedy the plugged ducts so they don't re-occur.
Phyllis

---- Marit Olanders <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 

=============
Hi Lactnetters,

I'm in e-mail contact with a mother with a breast problem that I've never
heard of.  I have her permission to post.

She has been breastfeeding for a year and has had pain in her left breast
since the beginning. The first five months she had constant pain, a sharp,
burning sensation inside the breast and all the way to the back and neck. It
disappeared after five months but returned every time she breastfed more
often than usual, and now it is worse than ever.

On the tip of the nipple there are three white threads sticking out around 2
mm, and she describes the look of them to be exactly like dental floss -
white, thick, soft and a bit flat. When dry they are hard and yellow. She
has tried to pull them but it is too painful. She wonders if it could be
nerve fibers since they are so sensitive and she feels a pain all the way to
her back when she touches them. She has no other visible symptoms, the
areola looks normal and she has never had any discharge from it, but she
easily gets mastitis on that breast.

She has shown it to her doctors and midwives but neither of knew what it
was. Someone suggested it could be white spots but she is convinced it is
not. It is clearly threads and not any kind of spots, warts or hair. She
also describes a strange sensation inside the breast occasionally when the
child suckles, like threads with knots that are being pulled with a snatch.

Anyone who has a clue?

Marit Olanders
breastfeeding counsellor in southern Sweden

--
Phyllis Adamson, BA, IBCLC
Glendale, AZ, USA
[log in to unmask]

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