My son is four and mostly non-verbal, he has been having some issues with diarrhea or loose stools.
He drinks powdered milk, maybe a glass a day along with a bowl of cereal.
I have never had an issue with lactose, I can live off milk and be fine. But my wife says she can’t drink milk, just use it sparingly in cooking. I know most people here(Trinidad) do seem to be lactose intolerant, I’ve had people tell me when I’m buying or drinking milk whoa man do you want to shit your pants :eek:
I’ve said time after time milk is fine for me.
Anyway I was wondering if there is a way to tell if someone is lactose intolerant if they can’t tell you?
EDIT:These are recent issues. Also pediatricians here warn parents to cut off formula and milk at six months of age and only give fruit juice to drink along with solid food after, there is a kind of milk phobia.
Most people in the world are lactose-intolerant. It is a relatively common condition and higher in certain populations. People who are lactose-intolerant may be able to digest small quantities of milk with solid food, though.
Stomachache is one big sign of lactose intolerance. The stomachache can be so bad that there is an immediate urge to use the bathroom.
A home-grown variety: identify lactose-containing food which causes intestinal trouble.
Take lactase pill before said meal. No trouble at all? Lactose intolerant.
From the mouth of several doctors, including specialists in allergies and internal medicine: “for intolerances, the real test is, ‘does it do you bad?’ If so avoid it, and fuck lab tests.”
In your son’s case, I’d do an even cheaper test: remove the milk from his diet. If the intestinal troubles stop, don’t reintroduce it.
I would have cut the milk already, if my son didn’t get angry and want his milk and “tea tea”. My wife has pulled the “told you so” on me because his ped advised us to cut it at six months, but at the time I thought it was just some wacky idea she had and kept it in his diet because I felt milk was nutritious and fine. It was only later I realized why she advised it, but she had some other odd diet advice like saying baby food should be illegal and we should always make him eat what we are eating from six months on, I told her I like sushi and I am pretty sure he would not be interested even if I offered it and she was like yes he must eat what you eat no exceptions.:dubious:
So now he wants milk, I tried substituting fresh goat milk which is available but no go on that. Ditto for lactose free milk, which tasted horrible to me even.
Thanks for the idea on the lactase pill, I just looked up the makers website and it says it is safe for kids his age.
Yea he is great with receptive speech(understanding instructions and such) but he has limited expressive speech, he can’t tell us something like his stomach hurts. He barely comes to us for cuts and scrapes and says “ouch” and shows us.
EDIT:That is to say he does have autism, should have put it in the OP.
Can you share more about your son? When my daughter was 4, she had maybe a 20 word vocabulary. Weird thing was she would learn a new word, and forget an earlier word, and still have a vocabulary of about 20 words, but the word list changed over time. Autism spectrum.
Yea he has around the same vocabulary, he supplements it with guiding us and using our hands like tools(if he wants tuna salad he will go get a can of tuna and a can opener and bring it to us and position our hands to open it for an example).
Or just trying to do it himself, he will try to make his own pasta! Which is fairly scary when he tries to boil water on a gas stove heh.
He actually talked very early no one believes us but he distinctly said “no” around four months, his first real word was “turtle” around six months and he was very verbal until he stopped later. Then he started saying “tatt-le” for turtle and everyone just laughed and said he got a Trini accent. He has gained many words, and then he loses them or just stops using them. He can sometimes start using them again, and then lose them again. Once when he was asleep some neighbors dogs started barking loudly, he said “dogs” in his sleep, we have never heard him say this word when awake before or since. He has other times talked in his sleep.
He is good with receptive speech, following instructions and understanding us. A lot of people did not even realize he had autism until we told them, they just see a kid who never says a word.
I’m pretty sure it is genetic and from me, I myself was mostly non-verbal until age six. My parents treated me pretty bad because of it, they took me to a lot of child psychiatrists when I was young and abandoned me at a mental hospital for children and never let me forget it as I got older. I suspect my mom was also on the spectrum due to her behavior.
EDIT:Turtle was in reference to his favorite toy at the time, a pull turtle with light up shell.
My son has had a lot of problems with alternating bouts of Constipation and diarrhea and a lot of it turned out he wasn’t getting a lot of fiber because he is a picky eater, if nothing else you should try giving him the dissolvable fiber that has no taste and you can just mix in his drinks it can really work wonders if you are consistent.
My son is also a very picky eater/drinker, I could make a list of the things he will eat.
And it is hard to remove something he does eat because if he wants it he wants it.
Very rarely he will do something out of character and try something new, but that is rare.
There are several types of lactase that may be suitable for your son.
If he is old enough and swallows pills without problems, then the regular lactase tablets should work fine. Give them to him just before he has the milk or other food.
If swallowing is a problem, there are chewable tablets available and these can be crumbled on top of a food.
For liquid milk, a liquid lactase is available. This works differently. You add it to the milk itself 24-48 hours before drinking. This gives the lactase time to digest the lactose.
I don’t remember whether you’re in the U.S. now or not and that may limit access. In most places, though, all the types of pills are available in supermarkets, pharmacies, and big discounters. The liquid is not. However, you can search for liquid lactase on Amazon or Google; it’s available from several countries of origin.
Alternatively, there are lactose-free equivalents of every type of milk if you have them locally. If so, this would be a good place to start.