Thrush update

Logan is fine, while Emma has the lovely ick covered tongue, so she's the one we're working on medicating. Oh and me, of course. Thrush, apparently, doesn't pass from baby to baby, but instead from mother to baby and vice versa, so unless Logan starts showing signs, we aren't dosing him with Nystantin.

Once again the admonition to Follow Your Instincts went right over my head. A few days ago I started thinking that Emma's tongue looked funny but convinced myself it was probably just milk. Then she started pulling away from me and fretting while nursing and that was weird as well as painful. Emma has not yet received the notice that nipples are not made of chewing gum. The fretting turned to hollering while nursing, but I thought it was gas or frustration with a lack of milk production. How I could blame myself while she's clearly putting on lots of weight? Normal milk producing fears. Couple this with the fact that when I started researching thrush there were other things that were also like thrush that it might have been.

Add all ingredients together and stir briskly. This resulted in my waffling until the weekend over whether it was or wasn't thrush until I got the final sign: shooting pains in my breasts. Not the sometimes painful tingle of milk let down, but a sharp "someone's poking me in the breast with a sharp metal poker" shooting pain. No fun at all.

Of course by this time on Saturday it was too late to call or see a doctor until Monday. It was also impossible to justify thrush as an "urgent" call to the pediatrician. That's when the frantic research began, while Emma screamed at me that her mouth was hurting.

Bad mommy!

A not-so-quick trip to the store (all of us going shopping is no longer "quick") with children in tow and I returned with acidophilus, odorless garlic, chewable vitamin C, and B complex to start my War on Yeast. Add to that a vinegar rinse for my breasts and Emma's tushie and that's what we started with to hold us over until Monday.

Now I have an ointment for me and the Nystantin for Emma and my plethora of pills. Emma is already doing better and I noticed the shooting pains didn't come back after I started downing pills on the weekend. Now I just need to find time in between nursings to apply my drugs. I have to keep wiping it off when someone wants to nurse - which is apparently every damned minute. We apply Emma's drugs 4x per day - we have to apply it to our fingers and wipe it around her mouth since she won't swish it around like the directions suggest. Emma is such a slacker!

Well, she's hollering for me, so I've gotta go. Le sigh!

Updated to add: To avoid cross-contamination, each baby now has their assigned breast until this little side adventure is over. I'm hoping to avoid spreading around the yeasty badness. If possible.