God, how I suffer! I’ve tried using over-the-counter supplements like Lactaid, but I still have all of the nasty results afterward. It used to help, but I seem to be getting worse as I get older. Now, I can’t eat anything that has any milk in it without regretting it later.
Does anyone else have the same problem? What do you use? Are there any prescription drugs for this? What are the side effects? Are there any natural remedies that work?
What about goat’s milk?
My sister had no problem with goats milk when we were kids but couldn’t drink cows milk. She is ok now if she uses Lactaid which I don’t believe was available at that time 25 years ago.
Not sure your practicality for acquiring goats milk. We ended up moving to a farm and raising goats. That seems a million years ago though. We actually went so far as having a milking operation set up and it was sold commercially to a local dairy. They were trying to establish a market but it did not seem to be taking off at the time. I have no idea if goat milk can be purchased in your locale. Hell, I have no idea if I could get it around here.
I’m also noticing that the older I get, the less tolerant I am to all things dairy. I’ve never employed the use of Lact-Aid or any similar products, although I think I might try sometime. It just seems to me to be too much of a pain to have to take a pill whenever you’re going to consume any dairy products. I always loved milk and still do, but I think the thing I’ll miss the most once I grow totally intolerant is the heaping helpings of ice cream. 
A Natural Remedy
You could stop drinking milk. Don’t you think you’re a little old to be breast feeding? And don’t you think it a little strange that you, an adult, are breast feeding from a different species?
Sure, she can quit drinking milk–and stop eating cheese and ice cream and cottage cheese. No problem asking every hostess if every meal has any milk or milk product included in the recipe–cake, brownies, scrambled eggs/omelets/souffles, etc.
I note that most “natural” solutions are not very natural for anyone but a hermit.
Goat milk should be available in most places (although you may find that only a very few stores carry it). In larger cities, at least one chain should carry it. Near the countryside, small grocers may have local stuff. Fresh goat milk is indistinguishable from cow milk (except that it is a bit creamier). If you can smell “goat”, it is old and you should avoid it. It makes a pretty good cheese, too, but that my be harder to find. Goat milk ice cream would have to be made at home, I’m afraid. There is certainly no national market for that, yet.
I’d be wary of any “natural” remedies in pill form for lactose intolerance, without doing a lot of research on them first. I’ve read that if you enjoy you like dairy products but can’t handle them, try yogurt or acidopholus milk, which contain cultures that produce the lactase needed to digest the milk for you. Not frozen yogurt, though, the freezing kills the cultures. (sorry, voltaire) Also to read all labels carefully as lactose is found in tons of products that you would never suspect. Foods marked “parve” or “pareve” are dairy-free and should be safe.
I know gas & bloating is common, but do any of you get what I get: A tightness in my chest like that of a heart attack, 1,000,006 gallons of phlem, and a “spasm” feeling in my throat. This happens every time I had even a little bit of milk or ice cream. I’ve read very few articles on these symptoms, and the doctors I’ve spoken with only shrug and give me the “you’re fucked, stay away from dairy” solution.
(Which I have to, but I’d kill to be able to eat some Bryers Real Vanillia!!!). And yes, my alergy too has gotten worse as I’ve aged. I think gas, bloating, and a bad stomachache is bad enough, but do any of you suffer like I do from dairy?
Get thee down to your local health food store. An amazingly large number of people report lactose intolerance–and an astounding array of alternative products have hit the market in response. If you’re suffering from lack of Breyer’s vanilla, I’d like to suggest the Vanilla “ice cream” from Soy Delicious. This stuff is absolutely delicious. Serve it to some friends and don’t tell them it’s made from soy. They won’t know.
Some of the dairy alternatives out there are not particularly satisfying, but others are great! Also try soy milk (Silk is awesome), rice cheese, and a wide variety of dairyless cottage cheese and sour cream.
As others have stated, don’t try to medicate your body into accepting something it isn’t designed to digest.
I’m not lactose intolerant, but about the only milk products I do consume are cheese (usually on pizzas, etc).
Check out a health food store. I drink soy milk, and use it in recipes where milk is required. In recipes, I doubt anyone would notice a difference.
If a certain food made me ill every time I ate it, I’d have no problem asking hostesses these questions… What is she supposed to do, keep quiet, cross her fingers, roll the dice and hope she doesn’t get sick?
I doubt many hosts/hostesses would be offended by these questions, and would probably be very accomodating in the future once they were informed…
I think we are confusing lactose intolerance (inability to digest) with allergy here. Two different things.
You must learn to be tolerant. As Rodney King pled, “Can’t we all get along?”
If the problem is really lactose intolerance, goat milk probably won’t help much, since it too contains lactose(but in lesser amounts). The main reason goat milk is easier to digest is that the proteins are easier to break down. Goat milk is very tasty, but I wouldn’t say that it’s indistinguishable from cow’s milk. It’s richer, but that’s not the whole story. It somehow tastes different (I can’t describe how), but it certainly doesn’t taste bad. The only reason I don’t drink it exclusively is that it is serveral times more expenisve than cow’s milk. I can get goat milk at my local health food store. They give it away at markedly reduced prices as it nears the expiration date. It makes excellent yoghurt. Canned evaporated goat milk is available at many grocery stores. It tastes every bit as bad as canned evaporated cow’s milk, though.
The lactaid pills don’t do a thing for me, but I’m hooked on Lactaid milk. It lasts forever, seems to have a slightly sweeter flavor than regular milk, and not complaint one from the old GI. It’s a bit more expensive, so get yourself a small box of it, and try it out! I highly recommend it.
Note: It sucks for cooking.
If lactaid still does not help you, you probably have a sensitivity to milk protein, not lactose. In this case you simply need to avoid milk products. I know, easier said than done. You get used to it though.
I breastfeed my allergic son. He is allergic to cow milk protein (and goat milk protein), so I cannot eat any dairy products including whey and casein. For this reason I am a master label reader. I drink rice milk. I like the soy milk better, but he is allergic to soy as well, so I avoid it too.
You can learn to live without the dairy. It’s hard at first, but you adjust. I love nothing better than a glass of milk and a hunk of cheese, but I know it will make my son terribly sick, so I do not succumb to my dairy cravings.
Recently (a week ago) I tried dairy again to see if he could tolerate it. To my surprise I found that I can no longer tolerate it! He also had the same symptoms, though not as severe as a few months ago. Oh well.
Red Alert for PKBites, from someone who has been there:
Your symptoms are those of a definite ALLERGY, not mere lactose intolerance. Don’t fool around with this. I’m not saying you could keel over dead if you eat a slice of pizza, but your body’s trying to tell you something, which is, “I’m severely allergic to dairy products.”
All that lactose intolerance does is give you gas and diarrhea. But the “throat closing up” feeling, the “chest tightness”, palpitations and excess phlegm, those all constitute a serious allergic reaction. Do you also break out in hives, feel itchy all over? Do your eyes water, does your face puff up?
Talk to an allergist about this, and stop drinking milk. Dairy-Ease won’t help, there’s a specific protein in the milk that you’re allergic to.
I mean not a single drop of milk or as much as a tea spoon of ice cream! I don’t break out, but all the other symptoms I described hit me hard, and last for several hours. This started when I was in my late teens and got worse and worse until one day I went to my doctor who sent me to an alergist who gave me every drug available (in 1984), none of which did any good, and concluded I was doomed to a dairyless life. I haven’t met very many people who react the way I do, but I’ll reinforce what DDG says, if this happens to you, don’t push it! Your throat can close up and you CAN in fact assume room tempature. All because of cow juice! Geez!