Help!

I have written and asked your opinion about this mother before.  The first
time I saw her she had what appeared to be a breast infection with a red,
warm area on the right breast.   She also had some symptoms of what appeared
to be yeast.  When I asked all of you about her a month or so ago the
unanimous response was that she could have yeast.

Let me describe some symptoms.  Before the infection was treated she had red,
warm area on her right breast upper right quadrant. She was experiencing
shooting pains in both breasts and had red sore nipples.   She took 10 days
of dycloxicillin.

Even before she finished the dyclox she began having swelling in the left
breast and the shooting pains continued.  Baby clearly prefered the left
breast over the right and mom needed to really coax the baby to take the
right side.

She went to the doctor about the yeast and was given trouches normally used
to treat oral thrush.  After 5 days she called back and was given diflucan,
200 mg the first day and 100 mg for the next 13 days.  The first day or so on
this she felt better then the symptoms returned.

I was talking to her all along about diet.

When she was still having swelling and shooting pain and miserable after
about 5 days on the diflucan I called an MD who has a lot of experience
treating thrush/yeast in breastfeeding women.  He questioned me about her
health which she has always insisted has been great up until now.  He
suggested that the dosage may need to be higher on the diflucan and that
sometimes it takes up to 4 weeks to resolve.  Her doctor increased her
perscription to 400 mg the first day and 200 mg for 2 more weeks.

Since I was away during the first week of this treatment I didn't talk with
her at all.  When I returned (two days ago) she called me and said she had
modified her diet and felt that sweets and fruit really seemed to aggrivate
the symptoms and she was feeling better.  Swelling was down but baby was
almost totally refusing the right breast.

Today she called me in a panic because she had red streaking on the left
breast and she is feeling ill, running a fever, etc.

I asked her to go to her doctor and ask if they could do a mammogram or an
ultrasound to determine what is going on in the breast.

The first doctor she went to told her that there couldn't be any tumor or
growth because she is breastfeeding and refused to call me, sent her away
telling her to take the rest of the diflucan.

She went to another doctor later in the day (the head of OB/GYN).  He told
her there was no reason to do any further testing that she had a breast
infection put her on a broad spectrum antibiotic (the name excapes me) and
strongly suggested she wean because it obviously wasn't working.  He blamed
her problems on fibrocystic breasts and said that this happens.

I am concerned.   She doesn't seem to be responding as I would have expected.
 I have always thought that fibrocystic breasts are better during lactation.
 She hasn't begun menstruating yet.  She is 37 years old.  According to Susan
Love's book inflammatory breast cancer looks a lot like what this mother is
experiencing.  Am I overreacting?  This mother is freaking out even though I
haven't said cancer once to her.  I just told her I would like some
diagnostic testing to determine just what is going on in her breasts but she
isn't stupid.   What do you think?

Denise Parker