Lactose Intolerant?

[charlotte-hall]

I've been diagnosed about 3 weeks ago, and since then I have been eating gluten free. I'm not feeling any better, although I know it could take longer. But could taking lactose out of my diet make me feel any better? The doctor mentioned some people become lactose intolerant for a few weeks...how would you know if you were lactose intolerant if you were feeling ill anyway?

[psawyer]

Lactose intolerance is common during recovery. Lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose, is produced in the tips of the villi. Depending on the extent of the damage to the villi, you may be lactose intolerant until they heal enough.

[charlotte-hall]

Okay, Thank you. I think I'm going to take lactose totally out of my diet for now. Until I start to feel better

[sa1937]

Okay, Thank you. I think I'm going to take lactose totally out of my diet for now. Until I start to feel better

I actually pretty well avoided dairy for about nine months but then I am a lot older than you and I suspect it took me a lot longer to heal. Then I slowly and cautiously started eating small amounts of hard cheeses. Now I'm tolerating lactose well. So don't give up hope!

[IrishHeart]

Yes, it could just be the dairy still giving you trouble.

As Peter explained above, it is a secondary intolerance in celiac, but most people can "do dairy" again in a few months.

I had to take out dairy for almost 10 months (but I am a lot older than you are and had more damage) and now, I can eat cheese (yaay!) and last night, I had whipped cream. (yum)

I think most celiac experts say maybe 3 months or so.

Best wishes!!

[YoloGx]

I am still lactose intolerant, though less than I was. I can now tolerate homeopathic tablets for instance even though they give me a bad taste in my mouth. Its now been four years.

I make my own yogurt and ferment it for 24 hours--so all the lactose is gone. For those that cannot handle casein, of course it still would not agree with them. But for the lactose intolerant it is just fine.

The fact is though that I have had celiac since infancy but wasn't aware of it until four years ago. Before that I thought I just had an "allergy" from my mid twenties on. So I still had an oatmeal cookie now and then and even after I avoided that, I was continuously getting slightly glutened from cross contamination from hidden trace ingredients and contaminated counters etc.. So the damage to my villi is likely pretty extreme.

I use the fibronylitic agent nattokinase (taken on an empty stomach) to help speed up the healing of the damaged villi. Bromelain helps a lot of people too.

For you, your damaged villi are likely to get better a lot sooner. Nevertheless, meanwhile, you might want to try out the lactose free yogurt and see if that is OK for you or not.

[Chad Sines]

How much of this is really a lactose intolerance, ie deficiency of lactase? You can take pretty heavy doses of lactase, so it should resolve with consistent supplementation; however, it seems that many have issues beyond just what seems to be a deficiency. I noticed the same thing with me. The issues I have fit more with a milk-product allergy rather than lactase issue. No amount of lactase prevents my sinus issues and other gunk. I am wondering if something in the immune system wonks out and confuses it causing it to have a fit over milk.

[domesticactivist]

It sounds like you could be having an IgE reaction to casein or whey which are different than lactose intolerance. Of course it's also possible to have both. How about cutting out all dairy for a while then trying to introduce different forms slowly? I would start with ghee which is mostly just the fat (lactose mostly gone from butter, then clarified to remove casein). Then I'd try homemade yogurt that has been dripped which still has casein. (instructions on the blog linked from my profile) Hard cheeses have lots of casein but very little or no lactose. Do antihistamines help your reaction to milk products? That would also indicate an IgE reaction.

[Chad Sines]

i have pretty much nixed dairy..mostly although i do want to experiment a little to see if it is a true allergy. What is odd is that this did not happen before the whole celiac thing kicked in. When i was on atkins about 5 years ago, cheese of multiple kinds, hard, soft, was a very heavy part of my diet. used to have whey protein all the time.

Then again, i do think that a lot of times our hindsight into how we felt in the past is often skewed.

[YoloGx]

It sounds like you could be having an IgE reaction to casein or whey which are different than lactose intolerance. Of course it's also possible to have both. How about cutting out all dairy for a while then trying to introduce different forms slowly? I would start with ghee which is mostly just the fat (lactose mostly gone from butter, then clarified to remove casein). Then I'd try homemade yogurt that has been dripped which still has casein. (instructions on the blog linked from my profile) Hard cheeses have lots of casein but very little or no lactose. Do antihistamines help your reaction to milk products? That would also indicate an IgE reaction.

This is very good advice, though I personally can't tolerate any dairy at all except for plain yogurt--and the home made 24 hour variety is best for me.

At this point even butter is a bit of a problem--for my liver and gall bladder it seems, though that isn't so much of an allergy as a sensitivity to the fat. Am now following a mostly vegetarian diet with yogurt and some fish and shrimp to help clean out cholesterol congestion in my liver and gall bladder. I find that dandelion root tea with marshmallow root is a big help along with digestive enzymes--this time the ones made by Jarrow (Jarro-zymes Plus with extra strength Lipase and Alpha Galactosidase).

As far as Lactase goes, the kind they put in milk to make it more digestible never worked for me. I actually had a huge reaction to it. I don't know how I'd do at this point. I guess I have been too chicken to give it a try.

[charlotte-hall]

Thank you for the advice! I'm just not sure if dairy is making me ill, or whether its just healing from the gluten.

[mushroom]

Thank you for the advice! I'm just not sure if dairy is making me ill, or whether its just healing from the gluten.

Well, I'm a different case again, as we all are. You have to take the advice that seems best suited to your particular needs. I was lactose intolerant long before I realized that gluten was a problem with me. I used to take the lactaid tablets, then when they no longer worked a I took a product called "Complete Milk Digestant" which contained other enzymes, and that worked for a while, but eventuallly I had to give up all lactose, but could still tolerate butter, yogurt and sour cream in which most of the lactose is predigested by culltures and enzymes.. I waited (probably longer than I needed to) for three years before I added back in ice cream, cream and cow's milk. But hey, hemp and almond milk taste great and they make ice cream from hemp and coconut, and I thilnk (if you can't make the 24-hour yogurt) that they even make goat's milk yogurt.

So the way you find out is to cut out all dairy for at least a week or so until you are pretty sure that the response you were experiencing was from dairy. Then you add some aged cheddar cheese. If you respond to that, it is probably casein that is bothering you. If you don't, then try some yogurt and see what happens. If that doesn't bother you, eat some ice cream!! If the ice cream sends you into orbit it is bound to be the lactose -- well, unless it is the sugar

[charlotte-hall]

Its so confusing! Because its difficult to know if its the gluten healing process which is making me still feel ill, bear in mind I've only been gluten free for coming up to 3 weeks..or if its lactose. So i'll carry on lactose free for a while and see what happens then

[GFinDC]

It can seem confusing at first. But our bodies are real good about telling us when there are problems. You just need to give it a limited number of variables to react to. Then when it reacts you will know what caused the reaction. Unfortunately when we are new to the gluten-free diet our digestive system is going through a lot of changes and reacts to a lot of different foods. Things may settle down after a few months though. You could try taking some pro-biotics and limiting sugar and dairy for a while to see if it helps. And be patient with yourself and your body. Things take time to change and adjust.

[mtdewpeg]

How do you know if you have problems with lactose? I am new here, just diagnosed with celiac a couple weeks ago.

The practioner at GI office told me i could have milk, yogurt,cottage cheese. I eat these things and they don't seem to bother my stomach. I don't know how much damage I have. I haven't seen the Dr since the EGD. After the EGD he said it looked unremarkable to him. I will see him jAN. 9TH.

[mushroom]

How do you know if you have problems with lactose? I am new here, just diagnosed with celiac a couple weeks ago.

The practioner at GI office told me i could have milk, yogurt,cottage cheese. I eat these things and they don't seem to bother my stomach. I don't know how much damage I have. I haven't seen the Dr since the EGD. After the EGD he said it looked unremarkable to him. I will see him jAN. 9TH.

The EGD will reveal if you have suffered damage to the villi in your small intestine, the area where the enzyme lactase is produced to digest the lactose in milk. Most people who have suffered damage to their villi find they have problems with milk due to the lack of the enzyme to digest it, which will cause it to ferment in your stomach and produce gas, bloating and diarrhea. If you do not suffer any of thse symptoms then maybe you have sufficient quantities of the enzyme to digest them. Sometimes, even with low lactase you can ingest yogurt, cheese, sour cream - dairy products where cultures and enzymes have predigested most of the lactose (milk sugar). Oftentimes the symptoms from gluten and lacose are quite similar.