Mastitis unlikely, is it IBC?

SunnyAnnie84

Dear forum,

my name is Annie and I'm from Germany (so please excuse any mistakes I make). I'm 30 yrs old. My mom, 56 yrs of age, was diagnosed with a G2 IDC in the right breast, Stage II, no lymph nodes involved, no metastasis, PR/ER++, HER2-. We thought she was lucky. No chemo, just the lumpectomy and radiation. She's on Anastrozole now. We all thought she would be okay again.

Then two weeks ago she suddenly developed a red rash on her right breast, heating, swelling, pain and a light fever all inclusive. She went to her gyn immediately and she described her antibiotics first. They worked quick. The rash and redness almost vanished completely and even though she's now one week off antibiotics, it has not returned. Yet there's still a small red area on her breast and something like hives near her areola. So her gyn wanted to switch antibiotics, sure it couldn't be IBC, in order to get completely rid of the infection.

Unfortunately (or thankfully?) my mom had a highly allergic reaction to that new antibiotics and had to be rushed to the hospital last night. She received a cortison infusion and got better quickly, but the hospital staff finally took a blood sample - and aside from thrombocytopenia her blood work came back okay. No crp, no other signs of infection or inflammation. I did my homework, so I know this can't be a good sign (unless the first round of antibiotics killed the inflammation, but why is her breast still red?).

She got an appointment in her breast clinic on monday and the rash is still not changing. It's driving me insane. Can her skin still appear inflamed even though her blood work is okay? Can inflammation signs linger for so long? Can IBC almost appear dormant after being hit with antibiotics? I can't for the life of me find ANYTHING similiar to her case. So this is why I came here. Maybe someone here has been through something similiar.

Sorry for my ramblings.

Love,

Annie

Traveltext

Hi Annie. Sorry about your mum's condition, but I'd have to say IBC Is very unlikely since it'sgenerally progressive and accompanied by the famed orange peel looking skin. Anyway, keep us posted about the treatments for the condition. It sounds nasty

SunnyAnnie84

Hi Traveltext,

thank you for your reply! It's just all so very confusing to me and it's driving me insane. I'm trying to cling to the fact that it's not progressing, which is, as you say, rather uncommon for IBC. I'll definitely keep you posted.

You yourself keep fighting! I've read so much about IBC that I have tremendous amounts of respect for everyone fighting it.

KBeee

if it is a small infection, it will often not show on blood work. She could request a punch biopsy to rule out cancer and figure out exactly what bacteria they are dealing with to more closely match the antibiotic to it