Hi, all,

I only have a chance to read Lactnet in dribs and drabs, but I hung 
out with Cathy Genna yesterday and she told me to check in and chime 
in on the discussion.

Liz, how hilarious to read your story about how I came up with the 
technique!  You gave it such great drama and made it into such a 
great story!  You're such a great writer.

The reality was really a lot less impressive -- I was just miserable 
with vasospasm with my first baby and realized it was coming from my 
nipples when they turned white, so I tried to get blood back into 
them by squeezing from behind.  When I did, the pain stopped 
immediately.  From then on, I squeezed (or pressed?) from behind as 
soon as the vasospasm started.  The key, I found, was not to press 
*behind* the muscles in the nipple, so for some women, it means 
coming pretty far behind the nipple, never right on top of it.

Over the years, I have recommended this technique as a low-tech, 
immediate solution to the pain of vasospasm.  It does seem to work 
pretty consistently.  And by the end of the first year, I've observed 
that most women are no longer feeling the pain even though they still 
experience the blanching.  I have no idea why -- if anyone does, I 
would love to hear about it.  Tom Hale and I once talked about doing 
a sonogram study of vasospasm, but other projects got in the 
way.  I'm still very interested in understanding more about the phenomenon.

Yes, the conference session Liz mentioned was great and I somewhat 
repeated it at ILCA last year using my own breasts because they still 
vasospasm (but it doesn't hurt anymore).  Hey, we women have the 
luxury of having the equipment to practice the technique, so why not?

Diana

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