Her Story.

Courtney Giroux talks about her journey to become a massage therapist. Her dream job was being involved in music as a career. However, after a few car accidents, she began to pursue avenues for alternative healing and found her way to massage school. She always knew that she wanted to be a mom and is the proud mother of a beautiful 2 1/2 year old son, named Joshua. Courtney knows that her mother did breastfeed her and her siblings. She credits her mother for setting a good example about breastfeeding as well as credits herself for learning about the health benefits for mom and baby when you breastfeed. Courtney had a cesarean section and a hospital stay of 4 days. Breastfeeding was okay in the hospital, but her nipples cracked and bled soon after coming home. She stuck with it for a while because she had been told that breastfeeding hurts in the beginning and she kept trying to push through the pain. Her midwives did tell her that it was not normal to be in such a high degree of pain and did refer her for help with breastfeeding, however, Courtney just felt that if she could just give it a little longer, she would begin to heal. By the
time she came in for help, she had significant nipple trauma and tissue erosion.

Courtney Giroux came to me for her initial consultation and while I helped her with position and latch, she also was dealing with an extremely high level of pain during each breastfeeding. She followed my care plan which included a referral to a pediatrician who specialized in tongue tie evaluation, diagnosis and treatment. She continued to try and breastfeed, however, the nipple damage was so great that at a certain point, actually on Christmas Eve she rented a hospital grade pump to use to help give her some nipple relief. She was also using a nipple shield and her pain level was still extremely high. Courtney took her baby to Dr. Rajeev Agarwal with Agave Pediatrics in Phoenix who diagnosed a tongue tie. The procedure was performed and while her baby was at the beginning stage of learning how to use his tongue properly, Courtney continued to breastfeed. She states it took her until 5 months until her nipples completely healed. Her case was one of the most severe nipple damage that I have seen in my many years as an IBCLC. She continued to use the nipple shield for many more months and by the time her son was about 7 months old, she was finally able to ditch the nipple shield. Thank goodness, she healed and went on to have a great breastfeeding experience from that point on and went on to enjoy the wonders of breastfeeding her toddler. Courtney explains what a nipple shield is and how it helped protect her nipples in the early days of breastfeeding AND how she finally was able to break free from the nipple shield use.

Courtney Giroux tells us that she had a lot of support as she worked hard to get through the tough times of breastfeeding. There were certainly times when she wondered whether she could continue, however, she eventually did heal and is grateful for the support she had. She talks about how she feels it is so important that moms seek the help of an IBCLC as soon as they realize something is not right. She admits that she hesitated getting help because she felt dumb… she felt like she should know how to breastfeed. She now understands that while breastfeeding is natural, but it does not mean that it comes naturally or automatically. She did take breastfeeding classes, but being a new mother, perhaps she did not remember everything she learned. Courtney is extremely happy that at 2 1/2 years old, Joshua continues to breastfeed. It helps during the toddler days as well as when he is sick.

From her research about babies and children and tongue tie, she began learning about how this affects people as they get older. She realized that adults have tongue tie also and how this can affect their health. She started realizing that she had a lot of the symptoms of tongue tie, sent a picture to a physician in Portland of her frenulum and she was diagnosed with a lingual tongue tie. Courtney found a group of adults who were tongue tied who talked about how they felt when they had this tissue released. She found a local physician who performed the procedure for her in May. Within a couple of days, she could feel that muscles were released in her neck and shoulders. This area previously felt like she had hard rock in them and now she could feel them releasing. She noticed a decrease in her headaches and she can now touch her toes when she could never do before. She laughed as she described how fun and interesting this newest skill was for her.

Quote “And when I was trying to wean from the shield I didn’t know if he would want to latch onto my nipple because it had been so long. I think even one day I wasn’t trying to nurse him and he was playing on the floor and he came over to climb on me and he ended up just latching on out of know where. ”

Links – http://www.drghaheri.com/about

Book Suggestions: TONGUE TIE Morphogenesis, Impact, Assessment and Treatment.

Contact info: courtney.giroux@gmail.com