Thrush help
For those of you that have had thrush, can you offer some advice?
Today is day five of treatment — the length prescribed on the bottle of nystatin from the doctor — and Alice’s tongue is still just as coated as it was last week, except now it’s a vibrant yellowy-green from the meds. At least we know the liquid is landing in the right place!
My momstinct is to keep using it for a few more days before going back to the doctor. Last night we took the advice of the wise ol’ Internet and spread the liquid on her tongue with a q-tip, rather than squirting it in. I’m thinking of doing this every other feed, too, rather than just three times a day.
Thoughts?
I continue to exibit no symptoms, but am using Jack Newman’s all purpose nipple ointment (instead of the off-the-shelf cream, which the pharmacist said is inferior to the APNO) after each feed, and dropping three acidopholus pills a day. Alice is feeding excellently, and the thrush has not spread to her cheeks or lips.
I’m not sure what else to do for now. There are other treatment options –diflucan, genitan violet — but this seems the least invasive/messy route.
Look forward to any help.
p.s. — kellymom is an invaluable breastfeeding resource, and the one I turn to first. You can find local breastfeeding support links under Recalls, breastfeeding, carseat safety, and I’ll be adding a bunch more in the coming days.
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Rylie had thrush too but I had to do 3 rounds of treatment for her and I was done breastfeeding. All in all I think it was for about 3 weeks straight that she was getting the medication making her tongue that bright yellowy green and getting weird comments from people because of it.
Good luck and I hope it clears up quickly.
How do you know she has thrush? Emma has had a white tongue since day one but no other problems and I don’t have any pain. If I wear those cotton breast shields I can get some occasional shooting pains so I stopped doing that and I have 1-2 yogurts a day. My Sears breastfeeding book says to rinse nipples with vinegar a few times a day. Go with momstinct though about the treatment.
We know it’s thrush because Alice’s white tongue doesn’t go away, even if you scrape it. That means it’s thrush and not from milk.
Baby can have symptoms and mom not, and vice versa.
I’ve read about the vinegar, too. Something to consider down the road for sure…
Oh man Carly. I totally did not find that the nystatin worked at all. I just kept using the cream on myself and it eventually just went away on it’s own on Liam. It seemed like he had it for a lonnnng time. But he wasn’t bothered by it. He was still nursing fine and I wasn’t bothered by it. I didn’t want to do genetian violet either because it’s just so darn messy AND strong!!! So because it wasn’t all that bad for us, we just waited it out.
Of course if had gotten worse, I would’ve tried something else.
Definitely something to consider, Laura. I don’t want to keep her on the drug for an extended period of time, either. She may have an over-abundance of yeast in her mouth, but I also don’t want the nystatin to impact the good yeast in her belly and girly-bits.
Thanks for the advice.
I’m surprised you hadn’t been using the Q-tip method – I thought that was how you were supposed to do it … When my nephew had it last year, his Grandmother used to put it on the Qtip – more exact – one end per time in mouth – i.e. once for the tongue, the other end for one cheek, etc. My Mother-in-Law was very thorough too when she used it on him. She made sure quite a bit of the liquid was applied to all affected spots…
You’ll know it’s clearing up when it starts to break up. Poor little Alice. It’s actually quite gross, but you’ll see little flecks of white stuff floating in their mouth.
I’d keep using it for at least a few more days with a q-tip. It might not have worked as you said because it was just poured in…
Good luck …
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