Mastitis "Drainage"

Newsgroup


"Drainage" needed for Mastitis treatment
From: bcapstone@aol.com (BCapstone)
The female breast, like the prostate, is a gland. The female breast, or mammary gland, secretes milk during the period of lactation.
This is similar in many way to the prostate. Both the prostate and the breast secrete milky white fluids. Only the female breast secretes intermittently while the male prostate secretes its prostatic fluid continuously from the onset of puberty.
When the breast glands become obstructed, infection called mastitis will occur. Helene Bertrand MD, and Lorne Rosenblood PhD, wrote a paper called Stripping out pus in lactational mastitis: a means of preventing breast abscess. In this case series study the authors show that stripping the breast glands of pus (similar to draining the prostate of pus), results in a decrease in abcess formation in 210 women.
The authors state that: ". . . once pus has formed and plugs the ducts nursing and the manual expression of milk are not powerful enough to dislodge the pus, and antibiotics fail to reach the infection."
When the breast stripping procedure was too painful, patients were given 50 to 100 mg of meperidine (Demerol) intramuscularly for pain. "Total clearing of the pus from the breast gave most patients dramatic pain relief.
After the first stripping done by the physician, women were instructed to strip their breasts of pus every 2 to 4 hours. Most stopped producing pus within one week.
The women were also treated with antibiotics. Typical organisms were Staphylococcus pyogenes, B-hemolytic Streptococcus, and Staphylococcus Aureus. Other organisms implicated are coagulase-negative Staphylococci, Streptococci faecalis, Esherichia coli, Enterobacter cloacae, Psuedomonas picetti, and Haemophilus influenzae.
The history of the evolution of treatment for the inflamed female breast during lactation is very similar to the history of treatment for prostatitis.... Just like in prostatitis, diagnosis has been based on collection of fluid from the gland (in this case milk) and leukocyte counts and culture. This would be expected as they are both glands that function to secrete fluid.
Mastitis can be epidemic, apparently transmitted infant to infant in the nursery and then to the mother, or non-epdidemic with a steady incidence of about 2% of nursing mothers.


This information is forwarded to you by the Prostatitis Foundation. We do not provide medical advice. We distribute literature and information relevant to prostatitis. While we encourage all research we do not endorse any doctor, medicine or treatment protocol. Consult with your own physician.
© 2002 The Prostatitis Foundation
	Further Contact:(click on words or mailbox) This page was created by Ideasmith®. Add to this site

"Drainage" needed for Mastitis treatment