Lactose Cheating

[bincongo]

I am a new Celiac so I am still learning. I had a bowl of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a month ago and had a reaction. My intestines where having a bubble bath of their own. I thought the ice cream was gluten free so I assumed that I now had a lactose intolerance. For a month now I have tryed to be lactose free but yesterday I decided to cheat with using Cool Whip on my gluten free desert and buttermilk in my gluten free muffin mix. I may be having some symptoms but not too bad. My question is - do people find that their symptoms from a lactose exposure are different than a gluten one? And how important is it to stay lactose free or is it just a comfort thing. I wouldn't think of exposing myself to gluten but might still be making CC mistakes.

[quincy]

I am a new Celiac so I am still learning. I had a bowl of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a month ago and had a reaction. My intestines where having a bubble bath of their own. I thought the ice cream was gluten free so I assumed that I now had a lactose intolerance. For a month now I have tryed to be lactose free but yesterday I decided to cheat with using Cool Whip on my gluten free desert and buttermilk in my gluten free muffin mix. I may be having some symptoms but not too bad. My question is - do people find that their symptoms from a lactose exposure are different than a gluten one? And how important is it to stay lactose free or is it just a comfort thing. I wouldn't think of exposing myself to gluten but might still be making CC mistakes.

Hi, sorry to hear about your dx. mine was in April and I am going through the same thing as you are. I am conflicted about dairy now also. I was dairy free (or so I thought) for awhile so in August I started increasing my intake of dairy and it came back to bite me... hard. My doc said to stay away from high fat dairy such as Ice Cream etc.

several things may be going on. You are lactose intolerant because your villi are damamged and the tips of the villi is where lactase enzyme is produced. also, your fat absorption is bad right now so your intestines cannot tolerate many fats until healing starts to kick in. I was unable to tolerate even too much olive oil at first and fish oil was out of the question. little by little I am able to absorb the good fats now but milk fat is still not good with me as I get the same reaction as to gluten. I don't know if I will ever go back to dairy. even the dairy in the pancake mix I love has it so I have to find dairy free and casein free. The other possibility is a casein intolerance (the protein in dairy causes similar symptoms to gluten reaction).

hopefully someone with more experience and knowledge will add to your topic to answer your questions more specifically....

[GlutenFreeManna]

I am a new Celiac so I am still learning. I had a bowl of Ben and Jerry's ice cream a month ago and had a reaction. My intestines where having a bubble bath of their own. I thought the ice cream was gluten free so I assumed that I now had a lactose intolerance. For a month now I have tryed to be lactose free but yesterday I decided to cheat with using Cool Whip on my gluten free desert and buttermilk in my gluten free muffin mix. I may be having some symptoms but not too bad. My question is - do people find that their symptoms from a lactose exposure are different than a gluten one? And how important is it to stay lactose free or is it just a comfort thing. I wouldn't think of exposing myself to gluten but might still be making CC mistakes.

I was completely dairy free for about 5 or 6 months and then I found I could tolerate small amounts. I'm about 8 months gluten free now and can tolerate low lactose cheese (hard cheeses like cheddar have little to no lactose) and yogurt (the lactose in yogurt gets broken down by the live yogurt cultures so it's easier to digest). I still cannot drink milk or eat ice cream without having stomach pains, bloating and mild D. I still cheat about once a month and try ice cream again (my hubby loves his ice cream so we always have some around). I have found coconut milk ice cream is just as good as (almost better than) regular ice cream. I also discovered I can tolerate goats milk and goats cheese with no problems.

As far as your differences in symptoms with Cool Whip, it has so little milk in it I bet it's very low lactose, if not lactose free. In fact Cool Whip used to be labeled a a non-dairy topping. And the buttermilk is probably also light on lactose due to the way it is cultured to break down the milk sugars. I learned on here that sour cream is low in lactose so I think it makes sense that buttermilk would be too.

[bincongo]

I kinda thought Cool Whip wasn't too bad for us. I have been using Lactaid milk and didn't think I was having any problems with it. I do have to admit that I had a latte with real milk and maybe that was it. I just don't really like Soy milk and I don't like any of the other "substitute" milks. Anyway I hate my diet, who doesn't, so I make rich gluten free deserts like flourless chocolate cake and who knows but my gut probably can't handle all that fat.

Today I found that my symptoms were simular to ones I think I had when I ate gluten but maybe not as bad. As I said - can you tell in any way if it is gluten from CC that is causing the symptoms or lactose exposure? It would be nice if there was a difference but maybe not.

[sa1937]

For what it's worth, Breyers does make lactose-free ice cream. I bought the vanilla (only flavor I could find) at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks or so ago. Surprisingly it's the same price as the other Breyers ice cream.

I've been gluten free for 5 months now and have a single-serve size of Ben & Jerry's in the freezer that I'll try again one of these days (when I don't have to go anywhere the next couple of days). Lactaid also has lactose-free ice cream but I haven't found it yet in the stores where I shop.