Breast abscess for 3 mths...medical management failed

Hi everyone. I am a patient and not a professional, and I am here to seek some guidance.

I had a gorgeous baby boy in April, but due to problems with his latch and lack of support from midwives I was unable to breastfeed without intense pain, a lot of blood and a crying baby. So I quickly moved onto expressing breastmilk with a pump. About 3 weeks later, due to what I now know as ineffective expressing, I developed plugged ducts in each breast and my supply dropped rapidly so I had to switch my son to pure formula. I went to my doctor and my health visitor for the next 2 months as these lumps would not go down and were starting to get painful but was told it was just engorgement and it would fade, and was given one course of antibiotics to prevent mastitis and told to put cabbage leaves in my bra.

In early July one of the lumps came to a huge blistering head (abscess) and I had to have emergency surgery to drain it. This seems to have got rid of the abscess although the wound is still open and very slow to heal.

I kept asking about the lump in the other breast and eventually was referred to the breast clinic and had an ultrasound which revealed a large abscess of 5-6cm filled with what the biopsy showed as infected breast milk. This was about 6 weeks ago. I have been attending the hospital every week where they have tried various methods to drain the abscess – first with aspiration with needle which drained most of the abscess over about 3 attempts, but I have what appears to be a cavity left where the tissue has solidified around where the abscess was under the surface. Last week they cut an opening in the breast and squeezed a lot of pus/blood and told me to continue squeezing at home, which I did (and passed a clot and lots of blood) but after one day the wound had closed so I cannot get anything else out. And I am still left with the lump. I am taking arnica 3x a day to help with the bruising after being squeezed and prodded.

I am attending the clinic again on the 12th September (I go on holiday with my family to Spain this week) where they will rescan the breast. I have been warned by the consultant though that my only option may be surgery which he has told me will result in a large scar and loss of breast tissue.

Some more information – I got a staph infection in 2009 and had frequent boils with no explanation although I haven’t had a recurrance since late 2010. My baby was born with a couple of staph boils though – one on his groin and one next to his cord.

I feel very upset, depressed and anxious about this. I feel consumed with guilt for not being able to breastfeed my child properly, I feel resentment at my husband who made me go to a friend’s wedding when baby was 2 weeks old resulting in me not expressing for 16+ hours and causing the plugged ducts (though I have never spoken to him about this), I feel upset that my (once quite attractive!) breasts are covered with lumps and scars.

I am not in pain from the abscess any more, the only pain I have is from the wounds and the bruising. I do not feel feverish, but wake up with night sweats a lot. I feel very very tired all the time, but this may just be from having a baby! I am slim, fairly healthy, although I do not eat as well as I did pre-pregnancy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have been on 6 lots of antibiotics from the doctors in the last 3 months and I am reluctant to take any more!

Thank you.