Lactose Intolerance

[malakaix]

Does anyone else suffer from this?

I think I have recently become lactose intolerant, never was when I was younger but the older I get the less dairy my body seems to be able to handle. On Thursday I had a small lunchbox size yoghurt after dinner and then went to bed. I woke up at 5:00am in excruciating pain with a bloated stomach and abdominal cramping. I was practically bed-ridden for the entire day because the pain made moving difficult. I'm still experiencing minor abdominal pain/cramping 32 hours later.

This is not the first time either, I've had similar symptoms from cheese and milk but this was definitely the worst and longest-lasting.

I haven't been officially diagnosed though i'm assuming it's either LI or IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). I never had these issues when I was younger but after getting food poisoning in Turkey 3 years ago from some poorly cooked eggs my digestive system seems to have become overly sensitive. My younger brother has Crohn's disease so that's also a concern of mine but I don't exhibit a lot of symptoms associated with that.

For those that experience this, is there any specific way you deal with it? I've switched to lactose-free milk and I've stopped eating cheese, icecream and yoghurt. I know you can get the lactose-free alternatives but man after the last couple of days I'd rather just not ever eat them again.

 

[Foreigner]

If inflammatory bowel (crohn's) runs in the family then you can't really rule out IBS.

Fermented milk products are usually very low in lactose, the same goes with aged cheeses like parmasean. It's not just the lactose though, a lot of people develop allergies to casein protein in milk. No matter how fermented the dairy, it will always contain casein. If your family has a history of leaky gut or inflammatory bowel and lactose-free dairy products don't do the trick for you, then you may be developing an allergy to milk casein.

Often with bowel conditions, dairy, wheat and gluten are the first foods to become reactive. If you don't avoid them, then eventually you start developing more allergies to mundane foods as the bowel becomes more and more reactive.

As for what you can do... you can try avoiding dairy for a while, and take probiotic supplements containing as many different strains from the lactobacillus family as possible. Sometimes a deficiency of those bacteria in the gut causes lactose intolerance. What modern science is discovering is that a lot of westerners are no longer producing lactase enzymes a lot sooner than they realize, but the gut bacteria pick up the slack. Did your other family members become lactose intolerant past a certain age? If so, your body may simply not be producing lactase anymore, in which case all that lactose is rotting in your gut causing painful gas and other issues.

There are lactase pills you can buy that you consume with dairy meals to break down the lactose, but I've heard mixed things about them. It's hard to know the right proportion to take, or the pills may not completely mix with your meal so some lactose will go undigested. They're also not cheap. They also won't help you if it's actually a casein allergy you're dealing with.

You can try goat's milk. It has a different taste but is lower in lactose. I don't know where you're located but if you have access to raw, organic milk straight from a cow or goat you can try that. When I was starting to become lactose intolerant I found I could still tolerate raw milk. Part of the reason is that raw milk is loaded with the very bacteria our bodies need to break it down, and it contains the right enzyme ratios to help digestion. If raw milk doesn't work any better then you're out of luck.

It's hard to completely avoid dairy because it's inside everything, but IMO my life is better off without it. The initial transition was difficult but now I have way less mucous and other gross body symptoms. My breath is fresher and I feel more clear. There's something about dairy that really produces a lot of bio-film in the body and I don't like it. I'm not saying everyone should stop dairy. If you can digest it then the more power to you.

 

[Tranced]

I haven't been officially diagnosed though i'm assuming it's either LI or IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).

I have a lactose intolerance, and I can say that you probably shouldn't expect much with regards to an official diagnosis.

I've been back and forth to the doctor numerous times over four years and my experience is that a GP will offer very little advise, because they don't yet know what causes these kind of digestive issues. There is no official test; just as with a gluten intolerance. Medical experts can test for coeliac disease which is an autoimmune dysfunction relating to gluten, but to my knowledge the NHS, at the very least, offers no test for food intolerances. You can get tests elsewhere, often from people with no medical qualifications, but I'm unsure how effective they actually are.

I have a diagnosis of IBS but, again, it is unknown what causes it, so the diagnosis brings very little closure. IBS describes symptoms, not the cause, so you will be offered medication and little else. I'd imagine there are a lot of people out there taking pretty powerful medication and still merrily eating away at gluten/lactose/etc etc, because they use things like anti-acids/more powerful medications to mask the symptoms.

https://www.thecandidadiet.com <take a look at this website. That's probably the best explanation I've heard, but my experience is that your GP will be very wary of it. This is understandable, but I think that the way that doctors, in my experience, seem to mask symptoms rather than encourage a change of diet is incorrect (when gluten/lactose are clearly the culprits, anyway), so something like a candida cleanse followed by completely avoiding problematic foods is IMO probably the best approach.

It's important to act as soon as possible, whether you just modify your diet or go for a candida cleanse; I'd never had a digestive problem in my life until gluten started causing me issues, then lactose, followed by eggs. You don't want to become intolerant to all the good stuff, if it can be avoided.

With regards to dealing with the absence of lactose, it's not too hard; I find gluten a lot more problematic because it's such a common binding/filler agent. Milk can easily be left out of most recipes, or replaced with nut milks. For ice cream I can confirm that home-made banana and coconut milk ice creams are amazing. And many people can still eat harder well aged cheeses because the lactose has converted to lactic acid during the ageing process.

Does anybody else have thoughts on what causes these intolerances, or know if they can be adequately tested for?

 

[starting_over]

The GI system is still a big mystery in medical circles. Who could have predicted fecal transplants would become a thing?

 

[malakaix]

Often with bowel conditions, dairy, wheat and gluten are the first foods to become reactive. If you don't avoid them, then eventually you start developing more allergies to mundane foods as the bowel becomes more and more reactive.

Oh god. I have eaten wheat cereals almost every day for most of my life. I've never had an issue with them and still don't, but i guess over time it's made me more sensitive to other foods by eroding the gut lining/bacteria?

As for what you can do... you can try avoiding dairy for a while, and take probiotic supplements containing as many different strains from the lactobacillus family as possible. Sometimes a deficiency of those bacteria in the gut causes lactose intolerance.

I might look into the probiotic supplements, it's possible I've ruined my gut lining over the years with drugs and other foods.

Did your other family members become lactose intolerant past a certain age? If so, your body may simply not be producing lactase anymore, in which case all that lactose is rotting in your gut causing painful gas and other issues.

As far as I know. None of them are lactose intolerant (my brother does have crohns but i don't think hes lactose intolerance - he is vegan though) i'm not even certain I am since sometimes dairy is fine. But when I do get all the symptoms associated with it.. it's always from dairy (yoghurt, cheese, milk, cream) so i've assumed it's a lactose intolerance but you could be right that it might be a developed allergy to the milk protein casein.

It's important to act as soon as possible, whether you just modify your diet or go for a candida cleanse; I'd never had a digestive problem in my life until gluten started causing me issues, then lactose, followed by eggs. You don't want to become intolerant to all the good stuff, if it can be avoided.

Yeah I honestly never had any digestive issues until I got food poisoning 3 years ago from some eggs. After that it's just been gradually getting worse which makes me wonder if my gut was damaged. Thanks for the response though, i'll have a look at the website.

 

[-=SS=-]

I seem to be on/off having a reaction to milk. Right now I'm drinking a smoothie I made which is largely composed of whole milk, yet there is no reaction to this (Milk, banana, blueberry, quality vanilla ice cream, p. butter, spinach, etc..). Then the other night I had no time to make a smoothie so I just had a small glass of whole milk - I got slight discomfort, and was farting something nasty! Despite the volume of milk being greater in the smoothie there is no reaction at all. Small amounts of cheese are fine for me, but if it's molten at all (lasagne, cheese toasty) then it goes right through haha.

Remove stress. Eat some fermented foods, sauerkraut is dead simple to make. Take a bit of glutamine powder in water before sleep on an empty stomach, helps rebuild the intestinal tract. And avoid things that irritate, like alcohol. Do this for awhile whilst your GI tract calms down a bit.

 

[truenamebrand]

Lactose intolerance is your body's way of telling you we as humans are not meant to consume milk from other species. The truth is, we are all "lactose intolerant," only some individuals much more so than others. Dairy is not healthy, plain and simple.

I use pharmaceuticals somewhat heavily but I also try and eat relatively healthy. That includes no milk, and absolutely no red meat or pork.

There are plenty of alternatives that aren't dairy if you really enjoy milk that much.

 

[snazzy_sn]

There's no reason for you to be drinking cow's milk anyways.
Consider it a blessing that your body won't tolerate this biological and existential poison.
Go buy some chocolate Silk.

 

[malakaix]

I just wanted to update this:

As per Foreigner's suggestion I started taking Probiotic supplements from the lactobacillus family, 10 billion each. The first dose kicked my ass and I had some terrible stomach cramping and diarrhoea which I read can be a symptom of the bacteria clearing out toxins in the gut system. The second one the next day was fine and following doses have continued to be fantastic. My gut has had virtually no digestive issues with food at all, it very well may of been a lack of good bacteria in my gut causing issues.

I haven't tried lactose containing food/liquids but I was already in the process of cutting it out and have no desire to go back to it.