>> She has been
>> experiencing "breast pain" for about the last 2 weeks.  Her baby is 4
>> weeks old.  It occurs in both breasts, but not at the same time.  It
>> hurts for a second, then goes away, only to reccur a short time later
>> in  a different place, and this goes on for an hour.

>This does not sound like the typical severe, pathological pain of thrush
to me.

No, it doesn't sound like severe thrush. It may not be thrush. But we should
remember that thrush pain can vary from mild to moderate to severe. Mild
thrush pain may settle without any treatment (or even being diagnosed).

Many years ago, a friend of mine had a baby (?about 9 months) who developed
orbital cellulitis and needed hospitalisation and IV antibiotics. My friend
stayed in hospital, day and night, to comfort her baby and keep feeding.
Finally, when they were home I was speaking to my friend over the phone and
she said suddenly her nipples had become tender and she had shooting pains
in her breasts. She had never heard of nipple/breast thrush. Anyway, I was
trying to determine how quickly she needed to get treatment, so I asked her
to grade the pain on a scale of 0 = no pain, and 10 = most pain you've ever
had. She said, just a 1 or 2. OK, so I said I'll come over the next day and
see how she is. Interestingly the pain settled completely over a couple of
days with no treatment.
There were no obvious signs of thrush in the baby, but I'm sure all the
antibiotics had lead to oral thrush in the baby and then nipple/breast
thrush in my friend.
Years later, my friend was reading something I had written about thrush and
she suddenly remembered that pain.
Lisa Amir
MBBS, MMed, IBCLC in Melbourne, Australia

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