Scared To Reintroduce Dairy After 10 Years

[jlee2]

I was just wondering if anyone had experience in reintroducing dairy products after strictly being off them for 10 years +? I was thinking of starting with cultured products like yogurt and old cheese. I stopped dairy when I was diagnosed with celiac as my body was a mess at the time, but now wondering if dairy never really was the culprit? Or perhaps since my body has gotten so used to being dairy free I should leave it this way?

[dilettantesteph]

I had been off dairy for years before diagnosis because it had such a bad effect on my body. It could easily have been as long as 10 years like you. After diagnosis I realized that lactose intolerance can be induced by the damage caused by celiac and I did reintroduce it after a year or so of healing. I am so happy to be able to eat it now. It is one of my few fat sources and I'm pretty skinny so I'm happy I tried it. Plus, I always loved cheese. I started with yogurt since it is lower in lactose, then cheese, then I added some milk. It is a really helpful for telling me when I am eating accidental gluten because I get lactose intolerant again very fast.

[jerseyangel]

I reintroduced dairy back after 6 years. I stopped eating it before I knew about the Celiac, thinking dairy was making me sick.

I stayed completely dairy free even after I went gluten-free, but about a year and a half ago I decided to try some greek yogurt. When I did fine with that, I slowly added back other dairy and had no problem at all.

[missy'smom]

The most conservative approach would be to get allergy tested first.

You could start with goat's milk dairy as it is digested very differently from cow's milk.

I have a confirmed casein allergy so when we were testing out whether or not I could tolerate goat's milk, the allergist recomended something like this:

Take a single TB of yogurt or milk(I chose yogurt so as not to confound things with possible lactose issues, consume that TB and see what happens, if all is well, an hour later or so take 2 TB. and so on until you've worked up to a full serving.

You could start with a quarter or half serving instead of just a TB, depending on past symptoms.

When you get up to a full serving, consume it every day, once or twice a day for a week and see how you do. Choose just one low lactose form at a time.

[jlee2]

Thanks everyone! I think I am going to try it... Maybe next week lol. I am just so nervous because there are so few days when I actually feel great so I don't wanna ruin it if I still do have a problem with lactose!! Has anyone who is very lactose intolerant had good experience with taking the lacteeze pills?? Then eating dairy? I have never actually tried them.

[mushroom]

Way back when , Lactaid used to work for me. Than a I had to go to Total Milk Digestant which had other enzymes also, then nothing worked except stopping lactose. Now, I can even pig out on ice cream (but I do take digestive enzymes in general still.) The only way to find out is to try the product with a (little) milk and see what happens.

[Mari]

It has been at least 10 years since going cow dairy free. I'm not lactose intolerant but do make antibodies to cow dairy. Last year, 4 years gluten-free I decided to try some cow dairy and choose some gluten-free butter cookies and reacted. I have a little intestinal reaction then 3 - 4 days later my ankles swell, as they used to.

I've read that some cow milk allergic celiacs can eat cow milk yogurt if it is digested overnight, long enough to digest the casein. I used goat milk kefir for a while but it does not agree with me. A few weeks ago I took some over-the-counter antihistamine which had a lactose filler. The cold got better then I noticed I had a fit of runny nose and sneezing after taking a pill. Apparently the lactose came from a cow dairy source.

[jlee2]

Way back when , Lactaid used to work for me. Than a I had to go to Total Milk Digestant which had other enzymes also, then nothing worked except stopping lactose. Now, I can even pig out on ice cream (but I do take digestive enzymes in general still.) The only way to find out is to try the product with a (little) milk and see what happens.

What is a total milk digestant?! Sounds interesting. I had not heard of that before, only the lactase enzyme!

[jlee2]

Whoops I'm not sure why my last post looks like that with my comment inside your quote it's so hard to type on my iPhone lol.

[mushroom]

It was this product: Open Original Shared Link - I got the name wrong, sorry.