Breast Milk Outside Pregnancy or in a Man
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Try one of these related symptoms.
Producing breast milk but not pregnant
Inappropriate breast milk production
Leaking breast before positive pregnancy test
White secretion from nipple
About the Symptom
Lactation is the secretion and yielding of milk through the mammary glands, which are located in the breasts. Lactation outside of pregnancy or in males is called galactorrhea. Some causes include medicines, like hormones, birth control pills, antidepressants, and blood pressure medicine. Herbal medicines, such as nettle, fennel, blessed thistle, anise, and fenugreek seed can also cause it. Marijuana and opiates, hormone imbalances, clothing that irritates the breast/nipples, tumors of the pituitary gland in the brain, thyroid or kidney disease have also been found to cause it.
When to See a Doctor
Seek professional care if you experience any of the following symptoms
- Breast milk outside pregnancy or as a man
Possible Causes
Generally, Breast milk outside pregnancy or in a man can be related to:
- Hyperprolactinemia
Excessively high prolactin (hormone that releases milk) levels in the blood. Causes include medications and brain tumors.
- Pituitary Adenoma
Pituitary adenoma is a non-cancerous tumor that starts in the pituitary gland (a small, hormone-producing brain structure). These are usually slow-growing and do not cause symptoms at first. However, these tumors can grow large enough to compress nearby structures, which in turn causes symptoms such as headache or visual problems.
- Mastopathy
A condition where a painful lump forms in the breast due to imbalances in female hormone levels, causing symptoms to occur before and during menstruation.
- Hypopituitarism
- Acromegaly
- Breast Cancer
Doctor's Diagnostic Questions
Your doctor may ask these questions to check for this symptom:
- Are you producing breast milk without being pregnant or giving birth, or if you are a man?
- How long have you had inappropriate milk production?
- Have you had excessive milk production when not pregnant, after childbirth, or as a male before?
- How has the inappropriate milk production changed since it started?
Reviewed By:
Unnati Patel, MD, MSc (Family Medicine)
Dr.Patel serves as Center Medical Director and a Primary Care Physician at Oak Street Health in Arizona. She graduated from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine prior to working in clinical research focused on preventive medicine at the University of Illinois and the University of Nevada. Dr. Patel earned her MSc in Global Health from Georgetown University, during which she worked with the WHO in Sierra Leone and Save the Children in Washington, D.C. She went on to complete her Family Medicine residency in Chicago at Norwegian American Hospital before completing a fellowship in Leadership in Value-based Care in conjunction with the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, where she earned her MBA. Dr. Patel’s interests include health tech and teaching medical students and she currently serves as Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Arizona School of Medicine.
Yoshinori Abe, MD (Internal Medicine)
Dr. Abe graduated from The University of Tokyo School of Medicine in 2015. He completed his residency at the Tokyo Metropolitan Health and Longevity Medical Center. He co-founded Ubie, Inc. in May 2017, where he currently serves as CEO & product owner at Ubie. Since December 2019, he has been a member of the Special Committee for Activation of Research in Emergency AI of the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine. | | Dr. Abe has been elected in the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Healthcare & Science category.
Content updated on Feb 6, 2025
Following the Medical Content Editorial Policy
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- Producing breast milk inappropriately
- Produce breast milk inappropriately
- Secretion of milk inappropriately
- Inappropriate milk production
- Lactating inappropriately
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Link to full study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.29.24312810v1References
Galactorrhea - American Academy of Family Physicians
https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2004/0801/p553.html