Victoria, I have a personal experience that may at least give you one idea
of something to try.  I developed nipple cracks with my fifth child, after
having had a terrible bout with thrush, followed by a bout with dermatitis,
due to an allergic reaction to the medication I used for the thrush.  I got
the other symptoms under control, but the deep cracks at the base of my
nipples just would not heal.  They would start to stick together in between
nursings, but always rip open again, as soon as he latched on.  I even tried
using just one breast for 48 hours, doing only hand expression on the other,
in order to avoid putting any tension on that crack.  It looked pretty well
healed after that, but tore open again, as soon as Joseph latched on.

What I finally found that helped was taking large amounts of vitamins A and
E.  I had suspected that, after losing my gall bladder, I was not absorbing
fat soluble vitamins properly.  The cracks healed in just days after I
started taking the extra A and E.  However, I had to keep taking the
vitamins, or the same cracks would start to open up again.  That was the
case for the three additional years that I was nursing.

Of course, this is just one case, but maybe that will give you an idea.
Even if this mom's nipple cracks do not hurt, I think it would be important
to try to get rid of them, since they would certainly increase the
likelihood of infection.

Darillyn

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