# How I got rid of my HIDEOUS 6-month thrush!



## Tupelo Honey (Mar 24, 2004)

Ok, background: soon after my dd turned one, I noticed her bottom lip looked thickened right in the center. I thought maybe I just hadn't noticed before, or that her lips were just changing. I really didn't give it much thought. A couple months later, I started having excrutiating nipple pain on one side whenever she nursed. I thought at first she was sucking harder or weird or something. This is my third baby to nurse--I've been nursing almost 6 years straight and I have NEVER, not even with the very first baby in the very beginning, had ANY nipple pain, so I was baffled. After a few days I examined my nipple closely and found a deep crack right where the nipple meets the aereola. Every time she nursed, it pulled open into a big open cut. Luckily since she was older, it was pretty easy to nurse mostly on the other side until it healed. Then that side started doing the same thing, and I was still stumped as to the cause. Then my nipples started getting flaky and peeling around the bottom half. I finally called a friend who is an IBCLC and she said it sounded like thrush. Iw as shocked because I'd had mild thrush with my second related to antibiotics, and this was completely different, with no identifiable trigger or cause. So I started doing the vinegar rinses, taking acidopholus, and applying it to my nipples. I got some Nystantin for dd's mouth, which did nothing. Inside her bottom lip it looked like tiny bubbles or blisters, not white. The stuff I was doing did help my nipples to a degree, so I knew it was actually thrush. I took a big dose of raw garlic for a sinus infection and that cleared it up on my nipples for a short while. Gradually it would get worse again, off and on like that for months. Finally a few weeks ago, my left nipple was so cracked it was striated and pulling apart almost into layers, and the whole bottom half of each nipple was peeling a complete layer of skin every day. My left got so bad that I stopped nursing her on it almost completely for about 3 days, and got my first hint of a plugged duct ever, which sucked. In the meantime I had started puttin maconozole cream (like Monistat) on both sides a few times a day, and finally got gentian violet, which I hate to mess with, neither to any avail. So, desperate, I got a bag of samples my Mom's dermatologist had given her for a weird, possibly-fungul skin condition she has on her fingers.

Ok, within ONE day of putting bactroban (Mupiricin, I think it's one of the ingredients in Dr. newman's APNO) and a topical steroid called Elocon on my nipples, they were 80% better. The cracks closed up, no more peeling, no more itching. Within a week of applying both twice a day, my nipples completely healed. It has been about a week since I stopped using the creams and so far so good. Now I'm kicking myself for not just sucking it up and paying to get the APNO made, because clearly it would have worked, and it could have saved me 6 months of yeast hell.


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## Lexymama (Mar 14, 2004)

Wow, so it wasn't thrush! Your description of your nipples sounds like what mine are like. I wonder if I could use an over-the-counter antibiotic for them and see if that works. Congratulations!!!!!!!


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## Tupelo Honey (Mar 24, 2004)

It was thrush. The Bactroban is not an antibiotic but an anti-fungal. It's Mupiricin, which is one of the ingredients in Dr. Newman's All-purpose nipple ointment, which you can get made at a compounding pharmacy, but your doc has to write a prescription. The link in my post is to get Elocon from globaldrug. It's a topical steroid, which is another component of the APNO. I think this is just a weird strain of candida that is very resistant to typical treatments.


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## Lexymama (Mar 14, 2004)

Mupiricin and Bactroban are actually antibiotics. You can look it up on the internet. "Mupiricin is a naturally occuring antiobiotic." (I got that quote off of the Bactroban website.) Dr. Newman prescribes that in the all purpose nipple cream in order to cover all basis of infection. I believe his nipple cream consists of an antibiotic, one or two antifungals, a steroid and a pain reliever.


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## Artisan (Aug 24, 2002)

Thanks for sharing your story. I am definitely going to get this stuff made if I have trouble with the new baby.


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