Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Head and Shoulders


Update on the thrush...The medicine worked for a week. Seriously!?! Anyways I found my own way to control it that has been working for two weeks now. Twice a day I apply a water/vinegar mixture. When I have itching I use only disposable pads and change them four times day. Finally I wash my nipples with Head and Shoulders shampoo once a day.

So far so good. It's become a daily ritual, but it's worth it to keep that nasty yeast far far away.

I was currious as to why the shampoo was such a big help in my fight and it turns out dandruff is believed to be caused by yeast. Stop the yeat, stop the dandruff...hence the shampoo. If you give it a try be sure to rinse well after using the shampoo, it's not something you'd want your baby to eat.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Thrush...again

I was hoping this time around to avoid my yeasty friend, but alas I have not. Since I'm storing milk though I looked online for some ways to kill the yeast so the milk I save doesn't go to waste. From what I've read boiling the milk will do it fine. It's also interesting to find out that the yeast is not killed when the milk is frozen, but it is deactivated. No studies have been done to prove whether it could pose a problem of re-infection to a healthy baby.

Read more here:
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/thrush/thrush-expressed-milk.html

What am I doing to get rid of it this time?

-Vinegar/water applied after each pumping before my prescription comes in (Lanolin is important to use after as this will dry out nipples)
-changing out my breast pads (for now I am using disposable ones) frequently and boiling my wool pads (they came with instructions of what to do which was very nice)
-adding infant probiotics to my son's first bottle each morning to treat him at the same time
-I also asked my midwife for something other than Nystatin and she's given me a prescription for Diflucan (I'll post back to let you know if it really works or not)