I just had a question and I prefer asking real-life people than randomly googling stuff. I'm wondering about experiences with sensitivities to dairy, or perhaps just milk/cream....

I've always known that a glass of milk will make me feel unreasonably full. In fact, I use that to my advantage - when I'm feeling like a bottomless pit, I often have a glass of milk and suddenly, I'm horribly full and stop nibbling. Also ice cream upsets my stomach, although worse in the evening than if I have ice cream for breakfast (not that I've EVER done that before. )

Lately, in the last two weeks, I've inadvertently added quite a bit of milk and cream to my diet. I began having a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I always have a skinny mocha after the gym so that hasn't changed. But then I also found a recipe for strawberry ice cream in my blender that the kids LOVE(!) - frozen strawberries, bit of sugar, bit of cream, and milk blended up. And so I've been having moderate amounts of that at night.

And I've become horribly bloated and constipated As soon as this cereal is gone, in the next day or two, I won't be eating cereal anymore. Same for once we use up the cream and strawberries. Nothing else that I eat or do has been different that I can think of....but I"m just miserable ugh...

I'm just wondering what your experiences have been and if I'm right to be making this connection.....

Most people are lactose intolerant and that definitely sounds like it. I was lactose intolerant and didn't realize it until I gave up dairy and found that the stomach issues that had plagued me for years had disappeared.

I usually restrict milk to just a breakfast shake thing every morning, but every morning I get gassy, nothing too bad where discomfort is a problem but it definitely does something.

I remember reading somewhere that most of the world is lactose intolerant to some extent, with Europeans being the most tolerant for whatever reason. Here's something I could find on it now:

"Approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy. Lactose intolerance in adulthood is most prevalent in people of East Asian descent, affecting more than 90 percent of adults in some of these communities. Lactose intolerance is also very common in people of West African, Arab, Jewish, Greek, and Italian descent.
The prevalence of lactose intolerance is lowest in populations with a long history of dependence on unfermented milk products as an important food source. For example, only about 5 percent of people of Northern European descent are lactose intolerant."

Source: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose-intolerance

my stomach has been hurting more and more over the last week or so and I'm not sure whether to attribute that to dairy or not....i'm not a huge fan of dairy and only usually drink it in one skinny mocha daily...

i went to an allergy specialist a few years ago, one who came up from the States...he did the pinpricks all up and down my arms and pronounced me allergic to cats, lobster and cockroaches....it did not pick up my sensitivity to apples even though he specifically tested me for that, and only turned up a "mild" allergy to cats despite my having had reactions to cats severe enough to warrant using an epipen if I'd had one

i would like to try cutting out dairy, milk specifically, but haven't primarily because i don't like my coffees with soy or almond milk lol

This is interesting to read, as I've been researching my family history extensively. My father's side can be traced back to the Czech Republic as far back as the late 1700s, while my mother's side is a mix of German and French and immigrated to Canada before the US several generations ago.

Europeans (mostly northern europeans) have a higher chance of being able to create the enzyme lactase since they are ones that have eaten a higher amount of dairy over the centuries.

Intolerance to a food is very real, but not the same as an allergy and may not produce the antibodies indicating true allergy. Often food intolerance is sort of a self diagnosis by elimination (which is why I've never gone to a doctor for my gluten issues). If you're intolerant of a food it can also produce a wide range of sometimes unpredictable symptoms. Usually intolerances are more dose related, say you can have two tablespoons of cream in your coffee ( for example) but more than a cup of milk causes symptoms. Usually true allergies trigger responses no matter how small the dose. I had a friend who had a near fatal peanut response from a miniscule smear he got into his mouth when he made a sandwich for his daughter.

IOW, if milk binds you up and makes you hurt, it's not going to improve with continued exposure.

Oh, my mother was 100% first generation Polish, raised on a dairy farm. She was lactose intolerant her entire life, before it was commonly recognized. As i remember, her problem was a soured, painful stomach.

thank you all! this is much more helpful than just googling to find information....my mid-day skinny mocha doesn't seem to bother me (perhaps because the milk is steamed?) but yesterday i began cutting back on the other milk that's crept into my eating habits

i do think that the more full of fat that the milk is, the more i tend to have issues....cream seems to be the worst, where homemade whip cream bothers my stomach and so did the homemade ice cream...whereas I had some nonfat sherbet ice cream instead last night and it didn't bother my stomach

The way I understand it, to add to what ReNew Me already stated, is that lactose intolerance is your body having trouble breaking down lactose itself. It doesn't react negatively as with an allergic reaction, but the way in which the body tries to break it down in the digestive system results in a lot of gasses, that ends up giving the bloated, crampy, gassy, icky feelings.

Have you tried Lactaid? I've never tasted it, so I can't speak to that.. but it's suppose to be milk without the lactose as opposed to something like Almond Milk.

Well, sherbert has virtually no lactose, fluid milks all have the same amounts, meanwhile whipping cream is generally lower in lactose (depending on the quality and fat content, it can range quite a bit).

Here's a chart that gives you some rough numbers: http://www.stevecarper.com/li/list_o...ercentages.htm

I'm wondering if it's dairy, or if you have gallbladder problems? Seems the fat more than the milk.

Back to my mom again ... she always complained she had a "lazy" gallbladder. Actually, I thought I did as well and I was a little concerned going on a high fat/low carb diet because I thought my gallbladder would tear me up. It has given me trouble since I was a kid in elementary school getting indigestion from the rare donut.

After more than two months eating high fat it turns out there's nothing wrong with my gallbladder. It's doing just fine on a diet that is extremely high in fat. The problem is combining fat with carbs. I've run across several references to this in the high fat/low carb literature. It totally makes sense, since I've also had problems eating eggs with carbs, but never with combining them with protein or low carb veggies.

I'm wondering if this is your case? Milk and cereal, carbs and fat, whipped cream is usually served with something carby, or has sugar whipped in (most people not on keto don't drink straight whipped cream, LOL!). Low fat skinny mocha, and sherbert no (or very little) carbs.

That's all very good information! Thanks! I hadn't thought about the combination of carbs plus fat....Now that I think about it, I almost always have my skinny mocha on its own too, not with any food.

Now I almost want to experiment and wait until I haven't eaten for awhile, then drink a nice big glass of full fat milk (no carbs, no sugary stuff involved), and see what happens LOL

On the other hand, I only ate half a bowl of cereal yesterday morning and no homemade ice cream at night and was NOT constipated today yay!

Gall bladder issues are tricky. My gall bladder was triggered by animal fats. Once I gave up animal products, my gall bladder issues went away. Once in a great while, if I eat a lot of fatty things, I may get a slight discomfort but it was nothing like it used to be when I ate animal products, even in small amounts.

Also, lactose intolerance is something that may not even seem so evident, I mean I coped with a lot of issues, thought I just had a sensitive stomach and all that sensitivity went away when I gave up dairy.

My stepdaughter had to have her gallbladder out at 25. Kid virtually lived on refined carbs and processed prepackaged meals, rarely touched meat other than take out, never, never drank milk, not even in cereal. Just goes to show that there really is no one size fits all diet.

I have recently found that Almond milk and Cashew milk is pretty awesome! I wouldn't say they taste as good heated, but if you are lactose intolerant it is a great way to eat cereal. I prefer the cashew milk, and if you get the unsweetened it is only 25 calories per CUP, that is the best part! You should be able to get both at Walmart. Although Alaska may be different!