I’ve got mastitis and it sucks!! I had it twice when I was nursing Kirsi but it was nothing like this. I had a very sore breast and it was red so I knew that I had to get in to the doctor to get antibiotics relatively quickly. Both times, I went in to the doctor the day after the symptoms came. This time, though, the symptoms came on super quickly and hard. Not only did I have the pain and redness in the breast, I also had flu-like symptoms – aching joints and muscles and a fever. Der convinced me to go to the ER on Sunday night (about 3 hours after I first started getting symptoms) and it was a good thing because I felt worse and worse as the night went on.
We went to the ER out here in La Dehesa because it’s so much closer, but of course, the doctor had to send me to Vitacura to see the gynaecologist on call at the main clinic. Here in Chile, they don’t have family doctors; every doctor has a specialty area. So, if you have a bad cold, you go to a respiratory specialist or if you have girlie issues, you go to a gynaecologist. They run tests and then if they can’t find anything in their field, off you go to another specialist. Anyways, so we had to go to the main hospital. The thing is, I knew it was mastitis so I just wanted the meds so I could start the treatment and go to bed!! As the night wore on, I started getting really weak and dizzy and was starting to space out. Good thing Der came with me and drove!
The doctor saw me, gave me a prescription and sent me on my way. He told me that if I wasn’t better after 24 hours of antibiotics that I needed to come back. I had a rough night Sunday night but I slept a lot. I couldn’t even lift Aidan up or hold him up to burp him so Der was up a lot with him after I had finished feeding him. Yesterday was rough too. I had no energy to do anything but lay down and I was in a lot of pain. I didn’t even have an appetite!! Nothing appealed to me for food – you know how sick I must have felt if I didn’t feel like eating! 😉
So, off I went to the clinic again. Thankfully I got an appointment out here so I didn’t have to go back downtown, but unfortunately, it wasn’t with my doctor. As we got to the clinic, Dr. Buhler was just leaving and he told me that if anything like this happens again to just call him and he’ll fit me in, no matter how booked up he is. He told me to up the dose from what the other doctor said for the first three days and then to go back to a smaller dose for the remaining four days. I went in to the other doctor (who I had the appointment with) and after checking me out, he said that things are looking OK, even though my breast was much redder. He said that was likely due to the warm compresses that I had put on, like the other doctor’s orders. But he said that there is no abscess yet, which is very good news. So, no more compresses, a higher dose of meds and I should be good to go. This morning, I’m feeling much better so hopefully, I’m on the road to recovery.
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