My mom somehow found your blog and it’s really great! I especially appreciate it since I’m lactose intolerant. Here’s my story: for the past few years (4-5 I’d say), I’d have an occasional reaction to dairy, after which I would take lactase pills for about a week or so. Then I’d usually forget to take the pills when I had dairy, but I’d be fine. It’s like the pills kind of stimulated my body to produce natural lactase.

Then in January 2009 I had a really bad reaction. I was on antibiotics for a UTI (urinary tract infection, which I seem to get periodically), and it was right before my monthly cycle, too. I was feeling kind of sick from that and I think from the antibiotics, and the only thing I felt like eating was yogurt. My mom makes yogurt from raw milk, and I usually just ate it with maple syrup. I had a very bad lactose intolerance reaction after that, which made me feel even worse! The next day I started feeling better and had a piece of corn bread, which had milk in it but I thought it wouldn’t affect me b/c it was baked. However, it did have an ill effect, unfortunately.
I started avoiding milk and yogurt, and then I started having reactions to cheese. I am off all dairy products, although I will occasionally have a dairy product but with one or sometimes 2 lactase pills.
What is confusing to me is that I’ve heard yogurt is easier for lactose intolerants to process, but that is what really set off my case. You mentioned that you might not be dairy-free forever…how are you going to “cure” yourself? I’d really like to know, because I do miss real ice cream, yogurt, and cheese sometimes!
I’m also playing around with my diet to test if I’m allergic to corn. I usually eat corn chips with my lunch, and after every lunch I would get GI symptoms. (On an allergy test done awhile ago, corn came out as an allergy, but those food allergy tests aren’t always accurate.) I cut out corn since Wed. or Thurs., and I’ve been feeling better! Do you have any corn-free recipes?

I am going to try the chocolate coconut milk ice cream tonight.

I know David Lebowitz BTW. Well, I met him anyway — KNEW him. He made cookies for my wedding in 1997! Funny, eh?

Anyhow, I was going back and reading your past entries… I wanted to tell you that you can recover from dairy intolerance!

We are currently doing the “GAPS diet” which helps reverse food intolerances — can even cure celiac diseases. You might want to look into that!

It’s based on the book Gut & Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride. She is reversing autism in many children with this diet — and of course lots of food allergies and other disorders.

GAPS is based on the SCD diet — Specific Carbohydrates Diet.

Email me if you want to know more — you can also read about it on my blog. And there is a group for people like us doing this diet — it’s called Healing Leaky Gut on Yahoo Groups.

Ann Marie

I definitely appreciate the “real food” recipes that you provide, and would agree with your statements about the simple, basic foods that constitute a healthy meal. It would be great if this milk sensitivity isn’t long lasting, but if it is, I’m glad you’re finding alternatives that satisfy you. I’m currently off of egg yolks, even after my diet, and am struggling with that, as I adore eggs (and was so sad when I saw your upcoming egg series post!). But, I will continue to look for real food alternatives as well!

Yes, I guess that all of you who also can’t have dairy will like that my recipes will be dairy free recipes. Maybe we can be dairy free friends, or something.

I am going to try to keep my recipes dairy free friendly and, for all of the “happy people” who can have dairy, dairy friendly. LOL

Coconut milk is great. It’s the only thing I have found that is creamy like milk would be. Still learning how to use it, but have found many things I like so far!

Narita,

Here is the thing. I was actually drinking raw milk that was cultured. It doesn’t get more easy to digest than that! But we will see how my self test goes in a little while. The naturopath told me that I should really notice if it bothers me or not after being off of it for at least a month.