Dear Cindy and all, Have not noticed an answer on Lactnet yet so thought to respond. This mom may have a galactocele, mentioned in Ruth Lawrence's book, a pocket of milk pooling in the breast. An extreme measure would be for a surgeon to insert a sterile needle and drain it, perhaps culture the milk, after visualizing on ultrasound. No promise of preventing a recurrence! Don't recommend this! I have heard of a couple of women who went on long term, low dose antibiotic, such as is tried for some toddlers with multiple ear infections, with no further cases of mastitis. One of the women was a friend of mine, a dietician, who tried the low dose antibiotic after the birth of her third baby with good results. The galactocele was never diagnosed, but that is my hunch. Susan Potts rn ibclc Minnesota ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html