Some of you know I am unfortunately lactose intolerant. I was born lactose intolerant, which for those of you who do not really knows what that means, it means my body does not produce the enzyme lactase which is what digests lactose. My LI seemed to fade as I grew up, (I don't remember having problems anyways) then in college I noticed that I was becoming sensitive to things, but didn't really think much about it. After we got married, Matt told me NUMEROUS times that I needed to go see a specialist, but I insisted burping was normal =) Then last summer we came back from vacation in Cabo, with the most horrible case of bacterial food poisoning EVER. I would never wish that diet upon anyone!! Matt and I both were sick, and it ended up being 4 of the 8 of us returned with the horrible bug! Anyways, after a trip to the ER and about a week and a half of me not feeling well at all, (lucky Matt bounced back rather quickly, I however had a heavy concentrated amount of the bacteria, so me not so lucky=( it actually took me months to recover, and I thought, hmmm, I shouldn't STILLL be feeling bad??? So, I did some research (Google) and found that there were "suggesstions" that it can take up to 6 months to recover from a bad case of the bug. WHAT??? So I said I would give it 6 months. Long story short, I felt like it was taking and took forEVER for me to start feeling better. So I was trying different things, not eating this or eating more of that.. etc... and finally I could put it together that my stomach had become super sensitive to lactose. Then I conducted further research, ie Google, and found that there are soooooo many foods, beverages, etc. that contain milk!! Anything creamy, anything with bread breading, etc. basically anything white contains milk! So after that, I decided my one last resort before going to pay tons of $$$ to have tests done to see what else it might be, ie celiac desease, etc.. I decided to just try going on a "lactose free" diet (basically narrows it down to anything raw, fruits, veggies, protein, etc. which all sounds like a really healthy diet right??) diet to see how I would feel. To put it simply, I noticed a change IMMEDIATELY!!! It was like magic! And yes I did try OTC supplements to try to help, ie beano, lactaid etc. also soy this, soy that, and I honestly felt like they didn't work! AT ALL! So now, very long story short, I am lactose free and LOVING IT! I went to my fam doctor a while back for a sore throat, and just casually mentioned that being lactose free was helping me a lot, and she asked, how old are you? I said about to be 26, she said, "well, you definitely need to continue building your bone mass at least until you are 30, and you don't want to short yourself from calcium, can you have anything at all such as yogurt or white cheeses where you could get some natural calcium??" I told her I can tolerate a cup of light yogurt and some of the white cheeses. So she recommended I have one cup of yogurt a day, and 2 cheese sticks, (with the rest of my lactose free meals of course) and then take a calcium supplement to get the rest. Did you know that 80% of us don't get enough calcium?? So doctor's orders, for me at least, is TLCaltrate (if you've seen the commercial they call it TLC Tender loving caltrate, my new BFF, everyday, for at least the next 4 years!
