ddhr.org - Intolerance of lactose

I have a slight problem: I'm mildly lactose intolerant. "Common symptoms include nausea, cramps, bloating, gas, and diarrhea..." I usually get about 1 or 2 of those 5. I'll keep those 1 or 2 a secret for the good of humanity.

This "disease" is funny because it has a very simple cure: Stop eating things that contain lactose. It's kind of like the solution to a hand hurting after being hit by a hammer: Don't hit the hand with a hammer. But here's my problem: I love cheese. Let me say that again. I love cheese. Love, love, love. I had a turkey and swiss sandwich for lunch today. Amazing! Pasta without Parmesan cheese? Unheard-of. Grilled cheese without cheese? Ridiculous. And it's not just cheese. I like ice cream, whole milk, and coffee creamer among other things. I'm a big fan of dairy.

Lactose intolerance would be a lot easier to deal with if it made me sick to my stomach. Oops I gave away part of the secret. Yeah so I don't get nauseous. If I did, I would always remember what happened the last time I ate dairy, and that would make me stop. But no. My symptoms aren't that big of a deal. Well, for me they're not. So the negative side-effects of eating dairy don't outweigh the positive goodness.

But I think I ate too much cheese this week, because I got another one of the 5 symptoms. And I didn't really like this symptom. It felt like there was an alien inside of me and he was pushing on the walls of my organs. So I came to the conclusion that I should probably eat less dairy; maybe only have it with one meal per day. That's fine with me. As long as it takes care of that alien. #food

Comments

mike

Jan 30, 2006

What about Lactaid? As you know, I've developed a similar problem. Seems to be isolated to ice cream and straight-up milk. The milk I can deal with, but the ice cream is frustrating. I don't even take aspirin but I've tempted by the panacea known as Lactaid.

Rich

Try Rice Dream or similar rice-based ice creams. It turns out you can make almost anything out of rice: bread, cheese, milk, ice cream... with of course no lactose. It's a bit different, though, and you may not like it. There's soy too, but too much of that can cause other problems.

Dave

Mike: I've tried Lactaid and I occasionally use it. But it seems to take care of one problem by adding to another. Still, the multiplication of the latter problem isn't as bad as the original.

Rich: I'm ignoring what you wrote. You can't make something out of nothing. You can't make a dairy product without dairy. And soy? How dare you mention the vilest of all food-like products.

Wendy

Jan 31, 2006

Dave-I don't get your Lactaid comment. What additional problem do you have with the pill? The pills work miracles, but don't work for everyone (me!).

Maybe you caught lactose intolerance from me...or maybe it was during that hiking trip with Mike...

Wendy: Lactaid converts my stomach ache into gas, and gas is something I would get anyway. So it takes care of one problem by adding to another. (And I was trying to be discreet.)

Feb 1, 2006

Sorry to blow up your spot.

kripa

I used to be lactose intolerant but then I think i gave it to Wendy. Maybe it's like the movie The Ring - It won't get you if you show it to someone else. Maybe you should try "showing" Rich - since we all know (except for him) things made out of rice can't be good - unless its a rice cake and it has peanut butter...but that's a whole other conversation.

Feb 3, 2006

Hmmm, I think I'm missing an inside joke here... I'm not too big a fan of rice in general, and I don't generally go in for "substitute" foods much either.
However, a while back my mom got sick and had to be careful with what she ate, and it turned out that pretty much all she could eat was rice. It was kinda wierd, watching her eat rice cereal with rice milk for breakfast, and have a rice cheese sandwich on rice bread for lunch. Dinner usually had, you guessed it, rice, as a main component. Dessert was the ever popular rice cake, though she had to leave off the redeeming peanutbutter.
This post sure got a surprising number of comments...