Thrush Chronicles

We've been battling the thrush monster at our house for the past 3 weeks. My doctor noticed that Anika's tongue was a bit white at her one week check up. We thought it was just milk residue but he told us it was likely a mild thrush or yeast overgrowth in the mouth common in young babies. He advised not to do anything unless it was interfering with breastfeeding. He gave us a prescription just in case.

10 days later I began to get itchy nipples. I dropped into the breastfeeding centre at the public health unit and the nurse gave us an information handout about treating thrush. It outlined four possible treatment regimes. We decided to start with the least invasive one -antifungal cream applied to my nipple before and after every feed. It sounds simple enough until you start counting the number of feeds in a day for a newborn. We were quite diligent with the cream and missed only the odd feed on the fly when we were out. I also started washing all the clothing and towels in hot water and using vinegar on the ones that could only be done in cold. I also cut out most sugar from my diet and started taking grapefruit seed extract capsules. The only recommendation I was not able to follow through on was exposing my nipples to the sunlight -a little hard in January on the west coast.

After a whole week of that, the thrush just got worse. Anika's tongue looked like it had a carpet on top and my breasts and nipples were now quite painful. On to step 2, I guess. I consulted the pharmacist and she advised trying gentian violet next as did the leaflet provided by public health. Everyone warned us it is messy stuff and stains everything in sight purple. They did not lie!

Armed with that knowledge we decided to apply the purple potion in the bathtub with both of us unclothed. We searched the house for dark coloured towels -preferably navy blue, and got some baby clothes from the bottom of the pile that I made sure were not loaners. I got in the tub and filled it with a little bit of warm water. DH undressed the baby. I soaked a Q tip with the violet and DH swabbed her mouth with the medicine. Well, the aim was her mouth at least. Of course babies don't like having medicine, so she wiggled and fussed, and meanwhile purple stain was going all over the baby and all over the bathroom. By the third try she had figured out that if she pursed her lips it would be impossible for us to get the Q tip inside her mouth. The only way to get that mouth open was to make her wail. Heartbreaking. After managing to get her tongue and mouth covered, it was my job to put her to my breast. She was so upset it took a while to get her to latch and in the process purple was going everywhere. The baby`s face now had a big round bright purple mug like something out of a horror movie. I was also now painted from top to bottom on one side of my torso with purple splotches.

After she did settle in for the feed I heard the sound of baby fart and felt a warm gush on my leg. I knew it, she had pooped into the bath water. Not only were we both covered in purple die, we were now also sporting a lovely mustard yellow to complement it.  After a rinse, we dressed her in the old sleeper and settled her down to bed with old blankets lining the bassinet to catch the royal drool. Treatment day one was complete.They recommend 4-7 days of this... sigh...

The second day we did a little more reading up and one suggestion was to coat her cheeks in Vaseline before the treatment so that only the inside of her mouth and lips would get stained. Good idea. We did the same procedure again with the added Vaseline, and viola, far less mess. Unfortunately DH decided to wash the Vaseline off her face and she got a purple face again from the very next feed. I also placed a hand towel over my lap to catch any poopies.

By the third day we were smarter with the application of the Vaseline, but she had also gotten smarter too and clamped down on the Q-tip as it entered her mouth. That meant more crying for both baby and mommy. We`ve now started using all white clothing that can be bleached later. The progress so far -my nipples are less itchy but her tongue is still white (well, white that`s been stained light purple!)

Tomorrow we follow up with the doctor. Hmmm... what will we try next.