Got a Galactocele?

If you've got one of these you've probably thrown your hands up in exasperation. When I was diagnosed with one the only thing the medical professionals told me was it would eventually go away on its own with some heat and massage. The thing is it didn't and it became painful and red to touch. As it grew and became more inflamed everything I read in forums from others experiences said I would end up needing surgery, but the medical professionals would try and aspirate first which would alleviate some pain but not help in the long run and this is exactly how it went down. It took 5 trips to the ER and finally convincing a student doctor to refer me to a surgeon. 

Things I wouldn't do again:

Massage with heat. Leave the lump alone. Heat actually encourages infection and bacteria growth. The lump actually contains the infection. By massaging it and trying to disperse it you're only encouraging it to spread. Your body knows what it's doing. Yours may disappear as mine fluctuated in size but the more I massaged and poked it the worse it got. Stress also exasperated it.

If you can, skip the aspiration. The needle is far to fine to remove the thick buildup and will only introduce infection.

I couldn't find much information online about them but there was loads about mastitis. Now even that info is mostly outdated.   

https://abm.memberclicks.net/assets/DOCUMENTS/PROTOCOLS/36-mitchell-et-al-2022-academy-of-breastfeeding-medicine-clinical-protocol-36-the-mastitis-spectrum-revised-2022.pdf