Lactose Intolerance Recovery

[SEAliac]

OK, I was probably stupid about this, but I've been dying for cheese so I bought some goat cheese at Fresh Market two weeks ago. I forget the brand, but the label was clear: Goat's milk, rennet, salt, enzymes. I thought it was safe (gluten-free at least) and after 5 months eating gluten-free I was hoping that my lactose intolerance was fading away. Wrong! I'm still dealing with the repercussions. I did get good news the day before I bought the cheese -- my follow-up TTG was only 3 units (normal range for the testing facility is 0-3). I don't think I've been glutened during the last 2 weeks.

I bought the cheese as part of my travel food kit while I was away from home at a conference for 4 days. My diet overall changed for those days. (I usually eat a lot of rice noodles and plain white rice. My tummy is happiest when I do that.) During this trip, I compounded my symptoms by eating Whole Foods gluten-free bakery sandwich bread that contains milk (with Boar's Head meat) for lunch and nibbling hard cheeses during happy hour. (The only other things available at the conference happy hour were breaded chicken tenders, meatballs, and mushrooms stuffed with who knows what. I didn't touch them.)

So, I have two questions for those of you who have survived lactose intolerance while your intestinal damage healed and have also successfully reintroduced dairy. How long does it actually take for lactose intolerance to go away? I realize everyone is different so you may not have a good answer for me. And are there tricks to reintroducing dairy? I've heard that hard cheeses have less lactose (so my goat cheese idea was probably my worst option).

[Thomy]

OK, I was probably stupid about this, but I've been dying for cheese so I bought some goat cheese at Fresh Market two weeks ago. I forget the brand, but the label was clear: Goat's milk, rennet, salt, enzymes. I thought it was safe (gluten-free at least) and after 5 months eating gluten-free I was hoping that my lactose intolerance was fading away. Wrong! I'm still dealing with the repercussions. I did get good news the day before I bought the cheese -- my follow-up TTG was only 3 units (normal range for the testing facility is 0-3). I don't think I've been glutened during the last 2 weeks.

I bought the cheese as part of my travel food kit while I was away from home at a conference for 4 days. My diet overall changed for those days. (I usually eat a lot of rice noodles and plain white rice. My tummy is happiest when I do that.) During this trip, I compounded my symptoms by eating Whole Foods gluten-free bakery sandwich bread that contains milk (with Boar's Head meat) for lunch and nibbling hard cheeses during happy hour. (The only other things available at the conference happy hour were breaded chicken tenders, meatballs, and mushrooms stuffed with who knows what. I didn't touch them.)

So, I have two questions for those of you who have survived lactose intolerance while your intestinal damage healed and have also successfully reintroduced dairy. How long does it actually take for lactose intolerance to go away? I realize everyone is different so you may not have a good answer for me. And are there tricks to reintroducing dairy? I've heard that hard cheeses have less lactose (so my goat cheese idea was probably my worst option).

[Rya]

Hard cheeses have less lactose, yes. But cheese in general has 5% of the lactose of milk, if I'm not mistaken.

My personal thing was to make myself drink milk every day or two or three until I stopped getting sick. Again, IF I recall correctly from microbiology, it is bacteria in your body that produce the lactase enzyme. If you don't give them (the bacteria) anything to eat (milk), they stop making the enzyme. I think it took me about three months, and it's not comfortable.

A smarter approach might be getting a package of lactase enzyme from a health food store and slowly weaning yourself off of them? Maybe in combination with some probiotics to help with bloating effects.

Another note is that most adults begin naturally producing less of the lactase enzyme anyway.

Good luck to you!

[Silly Yak Pete]

Some times you never are able to reverse your lactose intolerance.

[neesee]

Nearly 21 years gluten-free and I'm still lactose intolerant.

neesee

[Silly Yak Pete]

Almost 4 years gluten free and 2 years lactose intolerant already.

[SEAliac]

Thank you, all. I'm doing fairly well now, having stopped drinking coffee, taking a much lower carb approach to my diet, and eating smaller but more meals. I'm resigned to avoiding lactose for another 6 months. I seem to tolerate Lactaid milk OK in small doses. I'll try a re-challenge with lactose in very small amounts early in 2009. I may plan to re-challenge every 6 months until it seems to work. I like the idea of introducing small amounts every few days to build up the lactase production, but I'm not ready to start that yet. Maybe in '09. I still need to make it through my first Thanksgiving and Christmas without gluten!

[dixonpete]

I'm rather fond of Silk plain soy milk these days and I would take it over milk any day. As far as drinking milk to build up tolerance goes I'm not sure that's a great idea. Certainly doesn't sound like much fun. Probably a better idea would be to circle around the safe foods and make the best of them.

Thank you, all. I'm doing fairly well now, having stopped drinking coffee, taking a much lower carb approach to my diet, and eating smaller but more meals. I'm resigned to avoiding lactose for another 6 months. I seem to tolerate Lactaid milk OK in small doses. I'll try a re-challenge with lactose in very small amounts early in 2009. I may plan to re-challenge every 6 months until it seems to work. I like the idea of introducing small amounts every few days to build up the lactase production, but I'm not ready to start that yet. Maybe in '09. I still need to make it through my first Thanksgiving and Christmas without gluten!

[Lockheed]

Thank you, all. I'm doing fairly well now, having stopped drinking coffee, taking a much lower carb approach to my diet, and eating smaller but more meals. I'm resigned to avoiding lactose for another 6 months. I seem to tolerate Lactaid milk OK in small doses. I'll try a re-challenge with lactose in very small amounts early in 2009. I may plan to re-challenge every 6 months until it seems to work. I like the idea of introducing small amounts every few days to build up the lactase production, but I'm not ready to start that yet. Maybe in '09. I still need to make it through my first Thanksgiving and Christmas without gluten!

If you're having a problem with even the lactaid milk you might not have a lactose issue but maybe a casein issue. We recently discovered that this is my husband's issue and he's not celiac disease or gluten sensitive.

[funnydoc]

Hi!, I'm new here, gluten free now for almost 2 months and wondering if I will ever be able to eat anything other than Breyer's lactose free vanilla ice cream without having diarrhea the next day, but it looks like maybe not....which is okay, just good to hear others' experiences.

I would like to clear up a couple of misconceptions from posts above. I am a (retired) family physician, and I will upfront make the disclaimer that this is not medical advice for anyone, and you should always consult your personal physician on health matters.

First, though, lactose intolerance is not an allergy. The idea of gradually introducing lactose into your diet will not help the lactose intolerance get better. If it were and allergy, that strategy might work. But it will only give you more diarrhea and gas.

Second, the enzyme lactase is not produced by bacteria in your small intestine. the enzyme lives in the brush border of the intestinal lining cells, which are the ones that can get wiped out if you have celiac disease. Hence, no brush border=no lactase enzyme=lactose intolerance=diarrhea.

I hope that is helpful.

[Greenling]

Hi!, I'm new here, gluten free now for almost 2 months and wondering if I will ever be able to eat anything other than Breyer's lactose free vanilla ice cream without having diarrhea the next day, but it looks like maybe not....which is okay, just good to hear others' experiences.

Hi funnydoc! I was able to add dairy back in after 14 weeks gluten-free, so there is hope for you and regular ice cream.

[GFinDC]

Hi funnydoc! I was able to add dairy back in after 14 weeks gluten-free, so there is hope for you and regular ice cream.

Welcome funnydoc and thanks for input on the dairy posts.

I hope you enjoy our little corner of the internet and stick around. We will be glad to help if you have any questions about the diet too, lots of us have learned the hard way how to adjust to the gluten-free diet. We like to share though and help new people. If you get bored there is a funny pages thread at the bottom to relieve stress.