Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Could I Be Lactose Intolerant?

I first noticed something weird a few weeks ago, shortly after my parents left for Europe.  I would get an annoying stomach pain, sort of on the left side, which is where I usually get such pains.  It was sort of a combination of so hungry your stomach feels like it's going to eat itself and bloatedness.  I've found that those two symptoms often occur together, particularly when I feel that hungry and can't or am not able to eat right away.  I couldn't figure out why, after eating as much or perhaps even MORE than usual by 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I was feeling so...hungry?  Bloated?  Both?

One theory was that during the school year I was really really stressed and therefore my body was "holding on" to food more.  This theory was based on the common yet depressing knowledge that while stressed, your body retains fat.  Now that it's summer, perhaps my metabolism was going back to what it used to be and burning more calories and therefore I was more hungry.

But the bloated thing just didn't compute.  Then I thought, wait a second, having too much dairy can cause these symptoms.  Even people who aren't technically lactose intolerant can have icky symptoms from too much dairy.

So, on Sunday, I had no dairy at all.  No milk, no cottage cheese with yogurt and berries and granola and honey (tear), no nothing.  Well, unless you count the tiny bit of milk that was in the salad dressing and the tiny bit of milk in the filling of the sliver of cake I had.

And lo and behold: no symptoms!

Yesterday, a repeat of Sunday.  No dairy except for a little bit of cheese in the enchiladas we had for dinner, and that was accidental because I totally forgot that enchiladas have cheese (don't ask).  No real symptoms.

So, we shall see.  At least one more day after today of no dairy and then I'll try it again, probably on Thursday.  I read that it is not uncommon for lactose intolerance to suddenly happen to adults.  Fortunately, if I do find that dairy is what's making me feel icky, it's not a bad case.  That's good, because if I ever had to give up pizza and ice cream and other such delicious items, I would cry.

Oh yeah, and I ran 3 miles for the first time EVER today. :-D

3 comments:

  1. Congrats on the running as well! I am now up to doing more 3-mile runs as exercise and they definitely get easier! Sometimes dairy bothers me too, since my sister became vegan, I started trying some of the products she uses and I really love unsweetened vanilla almond milk (the traders joes brand is a good one) - I still eat dairy, but i noticed replacing milk on my cereal or in my oatmeal helps cut out alot of the lactose for the day -and I don't even miss it because the vanilla almond milk tastes really good! haha! Thanks for adding me on daily mile - its nice to reconnect with you in the blog world! :)

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  2. It definitely is nice! Since I have more time these days until school starts again, I'm venturing back out into the blog world. I started around this time last summer, and it sort of died during the school year. After I found yours a few weeks ago though, I've also become intrigued by all the "healthy living bloggers" you follow. I remember hearing or reading a while back about people who blog primarily about that topic and it's become a bit of a "sensation," for lack of a better term? I'm curious...what do you know about it? I LOVE food (as does Mat), so I'm particularly intrigued. :)

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  3. Interesting post! Can you believe that when I drink a loctose free milk I end up in a hospital...?

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