Oh Shiv I'm there with you, this sounds exactly like my BF experience, it was horrific.
I didn't read in detail every single reply but did see that you have gel for baby - is this safe with a NB I wonder because 5 years back the gel was not to be used on young babies due to choke risk (I suppose a glob of it could go back in the mouth, I imagine it's as uncontrollable as a glob of bonjella teething gel which rarely stays put). For DS we used mouth drops for the oral thrush, just a eye dropper thing so it was a liquid and didn't risk choking, I think as a liquid it spread more evenly around the mouth too.
Perhaps check on the gel?
Perhaps get a quick script for the oral drops for LO.
Keep the gel though as I was told to use this on my nipples rather than non-edible thrush cream. This info was from my home visit LC. Basically if you have cream (regular thrush cream) for your nipples you are having to wash it off before a feed which, if it is anything like how I was (and you do sound to be in an equal amount of pain and distress, I really feel for you), is agony to touch or wipe the nipple, it would have been impossible for me to wipe before a feed it hurt so much. so if you use the oral gel instead then you do not have to wipe before the feed, as it is is not a blob of gel it is not a choke risk and gives baby another wee dose of meds as she feeds (which I was assured was safe).
So many hugs for you - I also felt I could not skin to skin, every movement hurt, even standing in a shower having drops of water fall on my breast was excruciating.
My LC advised me to stop BF when I was so damaged (this was before the thrush, I was damaged by a MW hand expressing incorrectly in the hospital as I was having trouble feeding from the get go) and to either FF or express. I wasn't happy about him having formula but I felt like I was out of options. We mix fed and then I did manage to express all his milk needs for a short while but only ever had about 2 reasonable/manageable BFs when I felt hopeful things would turn out ok. I think for me the nipple sensitivity was going to be an on-going problem though as even without the thrush.
Eventually for me it was the decision to move to formula (expressing every feed and never getting to hold and snuggle DS or play with him because I had to express all day and night, bah I just could't do it, I needed to hold and feed him), I hope for you things can go the other way, if you can get the thrush under control it is going to feel totally different.
