nistatin? how did she take it? phoebe threw up a couple of times with it until my lactation consultant told me how to do it. you don't take the dropper and squirt it in her mouth but put what you had in the dropper in a little cup, take a cotton swab, and then use all that med. to swab everything in her mouth. phoebe started to look better in about 4-5 days too but the bacteria isn't gone yet and you should cont. for about 2 weeks!
also, there is a cream you can use for you that is a whole lot better. just use old shirts because it stains.
also i would give her accidopholus (you can find it at your pharmacy or your health food store) so she won't develop thrush on her bottom and it will help kill that bacteria in her mouth also. it's a liquid form and you give her 1cc of it.
we had a horrible time with it and just pray you don't get it! i got it and it took an eternity to go away and it hurt soooo bad.

:)jayme

Hi there,

I found that the prescribed medicine didn't work as well as a medicine I found at a healthfood store. It was quite a long time ago but it worked wonders. I believe it was called gentian violet. Its a deep purple liquid and it did stain my son's mouth but let me tell you it cleared up the thrush quicker that the prescribed stuff.

Good luck and I hope she's not in any pain. My son suffered like crazy until I used the gentian violet.

Best Wishes

Michelle

MY DD go this early on. I found the secret to cure to be to take a cotton swab and swab their cheeks. It's not an internal cure, meaning they don't have to swallow it. It's topical and ideal it should be swished in the mouth. Try to get an infant to swish. So to simulate it I found taking a q-tip and dipping it in the medicine and swabing the entire cheek area. DON'T DOUBLE DIP!!!! Use a clean swab everytime. This will eliminate the spitup and it did clear up the infection for us.

That q-tip is a great idea...Nistatin does sound like it's right, it's like a fruit punch flavor and looks like an orange smoothie...I've been giving her 1cc at a time (2 total) and just kind of rubbing the dropper around in her mouth while squirting, but I think the q-tip will definately work better (the md did say that it didn't matter if she swallowed it or spit it out as long as it's in her mouth...) I'll check on the accidopholus (say that 3 times fast) and the gentian violet...she seems to not be in much pain, but had a fever last night (maybe teething!?) so I've been giving her tylenol as well. I think I *might* have it, I noticed the night before her mouth got nasty that it stung when she latched on (I've never had problems with that before), but I'm hoping it was just a fluke!! (in the meantime, walking around the house without a bra is horrible when I've been at work all day and she's not nursed yet, I feel like a dadgum fountain! :D)!

My dd and I also have it. I used a cotton swab to "paint" the inside of her mouth with the Nystatin and she threw up. I'd say don't give it to her right after she's eaten.

My son had it too in his very first week of like. One warning about the q-tips, make sure you have good ones, because DS would want to suck on them and sometimes the cotton would almost come off!

DS would get thrush from antibiotics (so I'm assuming that's what caused this flareup).

As preventative measures for the future, try getting your child to drink something right after taking antibiotics. I was told it would help by flushing the antibiotics out of the mouth because they sit there and kill the good germs. Also try to get your child to eat some yogurt. I can't remember if it replaces some of the good germs or kills the bad stuff, but it helps.

Lol, you're not going to believe this, but she wasn't on antibiotics before (Dr. said sometimes you just get too much yeast in there...we have no clue what caused it!) getting thrush, however, she is now. The day after going to the doctor for thrush Timberly had a fever, but I attributed it (low-grade) to teething...well, I got a call from daycare that afternoon..."Timberly has a fever of 102.5, you need to come pick her up." Great...so I call the dr. (and of course her fever magically disappears while we're in the waiting room) and he (of course we saw a different one) says it's an ear infection. It's her first one, though, so even though she had been pulling at her ears, I thought nothing of it because it's one of her little things that she does. Anyway, he said she's doing pretty good b/c most babies have at least one by 6 mos...So now she's taking amoxicillan (which I personally could drink straight from the bottle) and refuses to take it...I have to hold her down and *make* her take it! AAK...I have been giving her yogurt for the past few days (it has accidopholus in it, which someone mentioned above) and her Nystatin 4 times a day and the antibiotic twice a day...I really do feel like "Dr. Mom"...Thanks for all the info (I tried the cotton swab thing, she just wouldn't have it!) :)

I hope the nystantin works for you all. It might on older children who can actually hold it in their mouths for a period of time then swallow. After several battles with thrush, I highly, highly suggest getting a script for diflucan. Another suggestion I have is whenever your children are taking antibiotics (especially augmentin) in which oral thrush and yeast diaper rashes are a side effects, give your child acidophilus. My pedi told me to do it and it works wonders. Buy the capsule forms of acidphilus at your local pharmacy. It comes in 2 strengths that I have found, 10mg and 100mg. You want the 10mg one. Twice a day give your child half a capsule by just opening the capsule and pouring it into their antibiotic or onto a spoon of something tasty to eat. It really does work. I have used it with 2 out of my 3 children and will continue with every future infection they get.

good luck

Does anyone know how long is too long for a baby and mother to have thrush? My baby is 7 1/2 mos. old and has had it practically all her life! I believe this case is so bad because of a misdiagnosis by her first pediatrician. I told him about the thin white patches when I first noticed them before I even left the hospital after having her! He told me they were just milk curds from breastfeeding and not to wipe them away. Later on I told him about the "needle-like" pain I would feel every so often in my breast when I would breastfeed, and about the pink-pearly look of my nipples. I was told by the doctor's associate what I was feeling was pain from a crack in my nipple that was so small I couldn't see it. That kind of insulted me. I know the difference between pain on my nipple and pain deep within my breast. I did some research on my own and came across organic Mamaki tea from Hawaii. I drank the tea myself (my baby won't take rubber nipples). Those leaves worked wonders! I saw remarkable results starting the first day of drinking the tea. Then I got a bad sinus infection and was given amoxicillin. Right after taking that, with no success, the yeast came back. Then my baby caught some bug that had me rushing her to the emergency room with 104.9 fever! She was given antibiotics, antihistamin, and tylenol.

She now has the worst case of thrush I have even seen with my own eyes! I myself am now getting over having a clogged milk duct which, once "unplugged", resulted in that one duct giving out "salty milk" (thankfully the salty taste hasn't affected my baby's nursing at all). I almost stopped nursing on that breast until I read nursing frequently is one of the best things you can do for a clogged duct. The saltiness is finally going away after about a week or so (curiosity led me to see what the milk from that duct tasted like after the lump started going down, since the milk was in there longer than normal). Unfortunately, I myself am no longer covered by medical insurance, so I'm doing alot of very careful self-dianosing. The baby still has coverage, thank God, but now I'm wary of just following doctors orders without a little research of my own along with it.

I have since been given Nystatin for her by another doctor. It hasn't worked and just makes by baby throw up when I give it to her! I've tried gentian violet also, but now realize I didn't try it for nearly as long as I should have (was afraid because no one around me was even remotely familiar with g.v.). After some researching, I will now try the gentian violet again and Mamaki tea also (this time I will give her some directly as well as drink it myself as I did), along with some other alternative treatments such as garlic tabs and lecithin mentioned here on this informative website I came across during the same research session which led me to this forum. Go to:

http://breastfeeding.com/all_about/smith_anwers1.html

I'm near my wits end, yet hopeful that I'll make my way though this bout with the yeasty beast for the baby and myself. If anyone out there has any other helpful suggestions, please don't hesitate to share it!!!

Other helpful sites:

Concerning Plugged Ducts and Mastitis
http://www.lalecheleague.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVMarApr93p19.html

Helpful advice on the use of Gentian Violet
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/moodyfamily/thrush.html

P.S.
Breast Milk is EXCELLENT to use on eczema! I saw miraculous results after using it on the advice of another mother from a baby eczema forum. Thank God for these forums!

Good luck to us all! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Treating Thrush and Yeast Infections

I'm with the gentian violet. It cleared up quickly with my son.

My grandson had thrush about four weeks ago - he was then five weeks old. My DIL took him to their baby clinic and they gave her gentian violet to put on her nipples, just a drop shortly before nursing. It did turn his mouth a bit purple. And it cleared up the thrush in a couple of days.

This is now the third time we have battled thrush, and usually it is just on my nipples, but this time it appeared first in my son's mouth. For some reason, about the time my children cut teeth, the yeast monster comes along. I would really like to know where it comes from and why (do I need to stop making homemade bread?!) Anyway, for myself, I have found grapefruit seed extract to be the ONLY external application to wipe it out. It comes in a little bottle of concentrate, and you dilute and swab on yourself before and after feedings, and as often as you feel the stabbing pain. It provides immediate relief, and my cracks healed up quickly last time when I used it. Using it immediately, along with plain yogurt in my son's mouth and for me internally, along with drinking kefir, and a good deal of prayer, and I haven't even gotten to the crack stage on the nipples, which is a huge relief. I have used gentian violet (made no effect on my case; I guess some varieties are getting resistant) , suffered through gaseous Diflucan (was beginning to work, but then I got pregnant and quickly laid off), and not even bothered with Niastatin, but by far the most effective has been the grapefruit seed extract and good old bacteria in yogurt and kefir.