My girl has bad mastitis - 3 trips to the ER with 105+ fever in the last 2 weeks. She has been on Cephalexin but it isn't keeping the mastitis in check.We now have yellow pus coming out and the pups won't nurse on it. We do hydrotherapy several times a day and strip out as much as we can - she is getting really sore.

Vet changed her to Baytril today. The pups have been taken off her because of the Baytril and now my girl needs to dry up quickly. I have cut her food to 2 cups today (meds need to be taken with food). She has so much milk it is just puddeling on the floor. I have expressed a lot of it but all that does is make it come in faster. I'm afraid to not do anything for fear of getting mastitis in the other glands. Any suggestons to get through this mess quickly and safely.

We are all miserable, she misses her pups, they miss their Mom, and I'm so sleep deprived that I can only hope this note makes some sense.

Thanks

I would have put her on Clavamox immediately and allowed the weaning to be at a normal rate.
I don't know how the Baytril will do but I have 100% faith in Clavamox for mastitus.

I fully understand about expressing milk so mastitus does not set in with the other glands BUT milk production is based on a supply/demand system. The more that is expressed, the more that is produced. The greater the demand, the greater the supply. Really a catch 22 situation.

Try using cabbage leaves -- put them on her abdomen and wrap with an ace bandage to hold in place.

Also here are some herbal treatments that work for humans that you could try (from Experts: Breastfeeding):
To use dried sage (Salvia officinalis) for reducing milk supply, take 1/4 teaspoon of sage 3x per day for 1-3 days. You can mix the sage in vegetable juice (for example, V-8), but it won't mix well into other juices. You can also mix it into other foods. If you don't like the taste of sage, try putting it into a tiny piece of sandwich and swallowing it whole - peanut butter or something else a bit sticky seems to work best for holding the sage in place. Tear off the corner of the sandwich containing the sage (it should be a very small section) and swallow it without chewing (that's why you need a very small section).

You can use a tincture of sage instead: 30-60 drops of tincture, 3-6 times a day.

Another effective treatment is to apply fresh, crushed jasmine flowers (Jasminum sambac) to the breasts to decrease milk flow. A study has shown this to be effective

Other herbs that can decrease milk supply: Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Spearmint, Parsley (Petroselinum crispum), Chickweed, Black Walnut, stinging nettles (not nettle - that increases milk supply), Yarrow, Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), Lemon Balm, Oregano, Periwinkle Herb (Vinca minor), Sorrel (Rumex acetosa).

Sage, peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, oregano, and cabbage leaves can all be incorporated into a pressed oil (cold pressed or hot) to make massage oils for milk suppression.

Good luck!
Deb

Salvia Officinalis - sage

Is this the same sage used in cooking? or some other herb also called sage?

Thanks
D

Also- skip her meals for 24 hours, then 1/4 ration, building up to full ration over 4-5 days.

Can your vet give her some meds to help dry up the milk? I've had a couple of my girls get mastitus, but it's always happened after the pups are already weaned. My most recent case was pretty bad, my girl's teat ruptured, and my vet gave me some meds to help dry her up quicker. I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the drug though. It was only 3 pills, spread over 3 days. That combined with the Cephalexin and hydrotherapy healed her up within a week.

If you wean too quickly it increases the chance of mastitis tenfold.

What did your own vet tell you to do?

Bb, my vet said to wean the puppies as quickly as possible without doing any harm. She said that she didn't see any problem with weaning the pups over a week's time while my girl was on Baytril - that it would not hurt the pups. I have heard others say that Baytril is fine when the pups are inutero but not once they are born.

It may seem cruel but the quickest way to dry mom up is NO FOOD FOR 2-3 DAYS. Dogs can easily go four days without food.

You have her down to two cups a day--that is still too much if you want to dry her up. If you feel too guilty cutting her off entirely, then give her small amounts, like 1/4 cup twice a day.

Good luck.

MK

I can't cut off her food completely because the Baytril needs to be taken with food.

Everyone is right about restricting the diet to cut back on milk production. One would think, she already has mastitis, so it is liable to spread no matter what unless the antibiotics are working and if they are working you would think it would help a little in keeping it all in check. However I am not a Vet and I think you need a Vet's advice on all of this. A word of caution too. WE haven't had a lot of mastitis with our girls- just dumb luck, and usually it seems when dogs get it, its not all that bad. However recently I learned a very valuable lesson that I had never thought about. Mastitis is a bacterial infection and it can come on in just a couple of hours. It can be caused by a variety of bacteria, and some are deadly serious. A very good breeder friend of mine who is a nurse had a bitch get mastitis and she was right on top of it and had her in to the vet immediately and before you could turn around that bitch had gangrene- she came very close to having a leg amputated, and losing her vulva as well. However with very quick and good work from the Vets they were able to save those two body parts but she did lose all the breasts on one side. Her mastitis happened to involve the type of bacteria that causes gangrene. We two years ago had a bitch of ours get a really bad mastitis- I had give her a half bath in my shower at 4:00 in the afternoon and really washed her breasts well and rinsed well so really had my hands on her and she had no mastitis. By midnight that night she was deathly ill, she threw up, her temp went up a bit and so we took her to the ec and by the time we got there her temp was off the thermometer and she was convulsing. She almost died that night, it was real touch and go. We transported her the next day to a specialty practice and she stayed the in intensive care for five days, her white count was 88,000 and she was very touch and go. I wish I could say we identified the bacteria but the culture that was sent it was lost, so we never got a positive id. So be very careful with those girls when they get mastitis. It can be a killer.
J