had terrible acid reflux, post-nasal drip + gas for the past year. decided to have a gander at cutting out dairy for a short while to see if it helped. didn't expect it to. with each day, i get slightly better. think this might be it lads

Looking for the best lactose enzyme to digest dairy without all the gas😔

Does anyone else ever pay an extra 1-2 dollars just for alternative milk in their coffee and STILL get regular milk? Wondering if this is just the area I live in because alternative milk isn’t v popular but damn I think it’s usually like a 50/50 chance whether I actually get the almond milk I pay for or not

I have consumed dairy my whole life. In fact, we had cows when I was a kid and consumed raw milk a lot. Never had issues with milk till I turned 30, I now realized that every time I consume milk I get upset stomach. I gave up on it few months ago then two days I thought I can try with a small bowl of cereal. Bad Idea, I still have bad gas and cramping even today. How do I know if I have developed lactose intolerance or just something else I don't know about?

My partner and I are starting to believe our 9yo has some form of lactose intolerance. Major gas and stomach pain after dairy/cheese up to 2 days later.

We honestly don’t put it together because the 9yo didn’t really talk about it until this last weekend.

I’m switching things to almond milk and taking dairy out of her food choices to see how she does.

Advice needed on good options for alternatives that won’t break the bank AND what are your experiences with kids that are showing signs of this?

Hi guys. I’m male 23 y.o.. For my whole life I ate cheese, yogurts, coffee , milk, every single day. I had some stomach issues but not extreme. And never made the connection between that and lactose.

So I did the whole check up. And it came in that I’m C/C lactose intolerant. I was shocked. I don’t know how it works exactly but I’ve been hurting my body for my whole life with knowing it. ? Any advice ? I don’t know where to start with this.

Hi!! Figured I'd come to the experts on this! I have extreme stomach pain whenever I drink milk. It could be under a measuring cup of milk and I'll take tiny sips and as soon as it hits my stomach I get a cramping type of pain. Once it dies down a little bit, I get a little queasy but haven't had any other stomach/bathroom issues. It only lasts for a half hour ish and it only happens if I drink milk; cheese, ice cream, and other dairy products are fine. Google searches tell me I'm lactose intolerant but that feels a little extreme especially compared to the people I know who are lactose intolerant. Any info is appreciated!! Thank you!!

I’ve been trying to gain weight recently and milkshakes have been my vice. Im slowly quitting coffee and have been replacing them with peanut butter and chocolate milkshakes and sometimes fruit smoothies with a bit of vitamin d milk. However, there are days where I will eat good and have my typical milkshake and the next day I feel so utterly sick to my stomach. It’s usually tolerably but today Its horrible. I take dairy pills if I’m going to be over doing it but when I posted in r/weightgain thread they were saying I’m lactose intolerant and my lack of weight gain could be because of the dairy holding me back. I increased my dairy intake over a month ago thinking it would be a good addition to my weight gain diet - one milkshake per day nothing crazy. I’ve been to my doctors about my eating habits making me feel sick (two to three times in the last year or so) and they kind of brushed it off and said I may have some celiac going on but left it at that and didn’t recommend anything but eating less gluten. But, now I’m curiosity as to if I could have both and I’ve just been ignoring the signs thinking it was nothing but my body playing tricks on me. How long did it take you to realize you had lactose intolerance? Were you diagnosed with something else first? Are there actual dairy replacements that taste good? I’m scared to make changes to my diet like taking out carbs and dairy or replacing them with alternatives but I’m willing to give anything a shot.

It's really hard to tell because I have IBS and my symptoms are all over the place, and I feel uncomfortable most of the time anyway. Most sources say that symptoms kick in 30 to 2 hours after consuming lactose. For me, I instantly feel uncomfortable in my stomach and feel bloated right after i take a sip of milk. After drinking a 250ml glass of milk, I feel bloated (honestly I'm not even sure if bloating is the right term), and burp/fart (a little bit, not really a lot), for about 15-30 minutes, then it's all gone.

Is this lactose intolerance or is it the IBS? If I drink two glasses at once, it's the same symptoms, but then it lasts about 30-50 minutes.

Due to some medical issues I'm needing a lot of protein and also can't really eat right now, so I'm wanting some protein drinks. The last time this happened I wasn't lactose intolerant; now I am. The drinks I used in the past have lactose so I don't know what's good.

Does anyone have any recommendations for palatable protein drinks or powder ? Preferably drinks (no prep that way. I'm disabled and everything is hard). I'm also allergic to pretty much all fruit, so if the only good flavor is the strawberry it sadly won't work for me. Chocolate or vanilla is definitely fine, other non fruit flavors are probably fine as well

Flavor is more important than protein content, so something that's lower than most protein drinks but tastes better would actually be preferred. Harder to keep stuff down if it doesn't taste good.

Thank you ❤️

So I'm confused. When I have ice cream I'm okay but chocolate causes flatulence and a painful stomach.

I had a whole bowl of ice cream the other day (strawberry cheesecake hagendaz) to try and combat constipation but it did nothing no pain, no flatulence, nothing.

However today I ate some magic stars and now my stomach hurts and is gurgling and I have bad flatulence.

Make it make sense.

Ice cream has more milk content and is generally worse than chocolate but apparently not for me.

I’ve always had this as long as I can remember and literally thought this was normal, but as lactose intolerance has gained more visibiity the last 10 years I’ve been wondering if I have it?

Of course no one can diagnose me here but is it a sign?

Like for example, when I drink milk, like 10 or 15 minutes after I drank it I would get this sudden horrible stomach pain and the urge to p00p. And then minutes to an hour later I feel alright?

I love cheese, and for example, this morning I ate a handful of shredded mozzarella and started getting cramps minutes after consuming.

However, I see the criteria for lactose intolerance is that one gets those pains half an hour after the comsuption of lactose? But mine happens just minutes.

Wha doctor should I see for this?

What foods did you eat that contained hidden lactose?

A while ago I switched from regular dairy to lactose free. And that seemed to fix my digestion problems for several months. But now I'm noticing something different. It just started this week.

I had a bowl of cereal a few nights ago with lactose free milk, but still ended up with crazy diarrhea ten minutes later, the same reaction I'd have if I just drank plain milk.

Today I had lactose free yogurt at morning snack (I work at a school) and within minutes,I felt like my stomach was "off." Two hours later I was having diarrhea and felt like vomiting, even though I was totally fine before I ate the yogurts. And the yogurt was fresh, just bought it yesterday and it's weeks from expiring. So I had to leave work early (never had to do that yet at this job) and go home, where I ended up having even more diarrhea. 😮‍💨

I'm really confused what's happening! Is it normal for people with lactose intolerance to suddenly become intolerant to lactose free foods? If I try that lactose free yogurt again I'll have a lactaid first to see if that helps, but I shouldn't have to do that.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I know aged cheeses like parmesan don't have lactose. I'm looking for diary cheeses that have the lactose broken down or removed. So.. lactose free american cheese, cream cheese, pepper jack, goat, what ever!

And then, where do you get it? I live in NY but am shocked to find fewer or no options when going to my local grocery store. Milk is easy to find.

Please, no Vegan suggestions. I'm looking for dairy only. Thanks!

Title. Help please?

Looks like my go-to (Sainsbury's or Waitrose own brand) has been discontinued.

Hi all, I thought this would be the best sub to get a better sense and understand if I’m lactose intolerant recently I started to work milk products back into my diet and I’ve noticed that my stomach hurts and I always have to run to the bathroom 15 minutes afterwards, I was non-dairy for a while because milk was making me break out. it’s been a few years so I wanted to work it back into my diet to see if that was still the case. My questions are as follows.

1. Similar to the way that you stop producing enzymes for red meat. If you don’t eat red meat is that possible for lactose
2. what ages does lactose intolerance start to truly appear? I am 23
3. is there a definitive test or just speculation when it comes to lactose intolerance?

Yes, I know I could Internet test these, but I also wanted to hear real people‘s perspectives on this🫶🏻

My husband (75 years old) became lactose intolerant about 4 months ago in December. We figured out which foods caused problems and made sure he took his lactase enzyme pill(s). It's now April 2nd and his lactose intolerance has completely disappeared. It's been gone for about a month. Just gone! While he was lactose intolerant, he never changed his eating habits other than we started buying Lactaid milk and he was taking lactase enzyme pills when he ate food containing lactose. He had his first colonoscopy in late January. Did that have some effect? I've been lactose intolerant for 40+ years so I knew what his symptoms meant when I saw them but I am floored that he can now eat any type of food containing lactose and have zero issues. Bizarre!

I seem to get a reaction with cream cheese, cream, macaroni cheese but I’m ok with pizza, small amounts of milk and skyr yogurt. Could this be lactose intolerance?

Here’s my dilemma. I’ve developed some sort of sensitivity to dairy, and just GI issues in general. The gastroenterologist says it’s most likely IBS. I know that if I stay away from dairy, the pain and most of the gas goes away, but I still have some IBS like symptoms.

Lactase enzyme supplements don’t really work well for me. All dairy products that I’ve tried seem to bother me, except Lactaid brand dairy products. A lactose intolerant friend recommended Cabot cheese to me because it doesn’t bother him. But I’ve tested it out twice now and both times it has wrecked me.

And yet, I’ve had the Lactaid ice cream two days in a row and have been totally fine.

Monday: ice cream in the evening. No issues. Tuesday: no issues all day. Ice cream again in the evening. No issues. Wednesday (today): three small slices of Cabot white cheddar with lunch, and this evening I’m wrecked. No ice cream today.

I don’t understand. I do know that products with whey protein isolate (which I believe is high in lactose?) don’t agree with me whatsoever. But it doesn’t make sense to me why the cheese would bother me and yet the ice cream wouldn’t.

I also had mashed potatoes made with Lactaid milk this past Thanksgiving, and again, it was totally fine.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?? Sometimes I start to wonder if I’m allergic to dairy, but then I think about how the Lactaid products sit with me fine and I go back to square one.

Please help. Thanks!

Hi all I’ve been without dairy and doing well purely for mental health reasons. I was doing a lot better. However.. Managed to accidentally consume a dairy coffee yesterday and my mood has plummeted. How long before you get past this? Thanks!

Hi there! Just looking for some advice. I ate anti-fungal for a VERY long time. I healed tons of things in my body, but the truth is that it was too long, and messed other things up...my hormones being one of them. I never struggled to digest dairy before I removed it from my diet, but now that I'm trying to incorporate it back in, it's tough. I'm literally taking 1-2 sips of raw milk a DAY...meaning just a sip or two in the span of an entire day, and STILL getting lots of headaches. Any tips? Thanks in advance!

I commented this on a different post here, and I thought I'd make a new post on this for newbies, because it was a struggle. but i added some tips and tricks in the end

here are some of my fav replacements:

• cheese: not even a replacement - cabot cheese brand - they sell this in costco, target, etc. They're all lactose free and real cheese. a replacement for cheese dip - tree nut cheese from whole foods is so delicious
• yogurt: lactose-free yogurts are available, I prefer Fage lactose free yogurt or Chobani zero sugar (since lactose is a sugar). non-dairy yogurts have weird texture imo. Both of these can be found in target, walmart, hyvee, whole foods
• ice cream: sorbets are safe. lactose free ice cream often still has traces of lactose. I like the soy vanilla ice cream from trader joes or the chocolate mini drumsticks from trader joes. trader joes had a lot of good options, and surprisingly so does target - especially when there's a coupon on the target app
• milk: there's lactaid and trader joes lactose-free milk, but I prefer alternative milk. Oat milk from elmhurst brand is delicious. Soy milk from trader joes for unsweetened, but the silk brand is ok for sweetened (I got from BJ's). Soy milk also has protein so should help you stay full. pistachio milk and cashew milk is also delicious and creamy in texture.
• butter: the trader joes vegan butter is delicious and cheap. my favorite vegan butter is by the brand miyokos, but it's like $8.
• cream cheese: I hate the taste and texture of almost all vegan cream cheese, but tofu cream cheese is delicious - this is something I'd make on my own - there's sufficient easy and quick recipes online and it's cheap to make. If you're in NYC though, Brooklyn Bagels (near Noho in Manhattan) makes delicious tofu cream cheese or H&H Bagels.
• heavy cream (for baking): whole foods has vegan options
• when baking or cooking, to thicken something instead of using cream or dairy, you can add a little bit of flour or corn starch in the mix. Or if you're trying to make it a little creamier in texture, you can look for recipes using miso or just adding an alternative milk. For cake, try an olive oil cake - it's to die for so delicious. For butter alternative, just add olive oil - only 3/4 the amount listed though.
• chocolate: there's a lot of vegan chocolate flavored options here and there because it's easy to mask any untasty veganness (i know it's not a word) with chocolate flavor. Nesquick has hot choco powder thats lactose free. You can look for cacao products.

Some tips and tricks to navigating this new diet:

• the trick is to look for either lactose-free or zero sugar products. Always check the back for zero sugar products, because sometimes they mean no added sugar not actually zero-sugar. Some of the zero sugar products only say lactose-free in tiny letters in the back of the product like the chobani yogurt I mentioned
• Know your sensitivity, how much can you handle? If you're only mildly lactose intolerant, lactase pills are probably enough for you without all these alternatives. I prefer the costco brand because it claims to have triple the amount of lactase that lactaid pills contain. ALSO, lactase pills are FSA/HSA eligible so make sure to take advantage of that
• Get used to reading the ingredients lists. Different dairy products have differing amounts of lactose based on the production process. For example, the more solid the cheese, the less lactose there is. Butter has low levels of lactose because in the butter-making process, the high concentrations of lactose from heavy cream will end up in the buttermilk (I ate chicken nuggets that used buttermilk in the batter and was ruined).
• In restaurants, ask about specific ingredients. Does this have any cream or buttermilk. Because a lot of things have butter and as mentioned butter has low concentrations of lactose, so if its not drowning in butter, I'm okay with butter so I don't ask about dairy in general. EGGS ARE NOT DAIRY. So if you ask if the food has dairy in some midwestern states, for some reason they'll say yes if there's mayo because mayo has eggs in it. So ask about specific ingredients. (but mayo can have tiny bits of lactose, so if you're ultra sensitive, avoid it. and if mayo is made in the restaurant, sometimes they be adding cream it's stupid so avoid 'homemade' mayo).
• learn to cook. cooking is fun, and there's so many ways to cook without dairy. I personally am Korean and most Korean foods don't have dairy in it, so for me it was easy to eat and cook without looking for more lactose free alternatives. Explore other cuisines, there's a lot out there that can have creamy texture without dairy in it.
• If the ingredients list includes "whey" - there's lactose. If it says "may contain dairy", that means the product itself isn't made with dairy, but it is made in a factory where dairy products are made. Depending on sensitivity, you might be okay with it but if you're really sensitive, it would affect you
• If you can drink milk in other countries that aren't the states like Europe - you're likely intolerant to something else in milk not lactose. There's a couple things in milk the human body has difficulty digesting - pin pointing what part of milk is affecting you will be helpful

Edit: I forgot to mention - Blaze Pizza (the chain) offers pretty good vegan cheese on pizza and cheese bread without extra charge <3

30male, my whole life I’ve never had any problems with dairy products such as milk, yogurt, etc. My only problem is cheese. If I have anything like pizza, poutine, cheese pies, etc. I’m going to the bathroom for the rest of the day. I’ve had some people suggest lactose intolerance but wouldn’t that be the opposite? How am I ok drinking a glass of milk?

Wondering if anyone experiences something similar