Everyone with lactose intolerance seems to have their very own lactose intolerance story, a story that may include doctor's appointments, specialists, testing, experimenting with a dairy free diet and more. My family's lactose intolerance story includes all of the above and more.
My husband and his mother simply avoided dairy for most of their lives, because dairy intake made them very uncomfortable. My husband has an Indian and African heritage, which means he had great chances of becoming lactose intolerant, but it was not until we had our first son that he realized the reason behind his reaction to dairy products.
Our son had no symptoms for the first 11 months of his life, and we thought we were off to a great start. I did nurse him for a few months, but due to going to school full-time I quickly gave up on nursing, so we moved on to bottle feeding him.
The first time we realized that our son had a problem was when we switched from formula to regular milk at the age of 11 months. We gave him a bottle of regular milk, and watched as his skin developed an instant rash. We tried it again a few days later, and the same thing happened. On top of the rash, he also complained of stomach aches, and he simply did not seem comfortable.
Our son's pediatrician referred us to a specialist, and we were told all about allergies and lactose intolerance. We put our son on a dairy free diet for a while, and then we slowly started introducing dairy items to see what he reacted to and what he did not.
We stuck to soy milk, and both my husband and his mother started drinking soy milk as well. This worked well for a while, and since our son was either taken care of by me or his grandmother, we did not have any daycare issues.
When he was 2 1/2 we moved to Europe due to family obligations, and since our son had to start daycare in Europe, it started posing questions. This meant that we started seeing doctors and specialists all over again, and since lactose intolerance is not very common in Northern Europe, it posed several problems.
First of all, it seemed that the doctors had a difficult time acknowledging that there was a problem, simply because lactose intolerance and milk allergies were so rare in the country. My son received several allergy tests, all of which turned out to not yield any results. Then they did their "lactose intolerance test", as my son was given a very small amount of milk to see how he would react.
There was no reaction in the time frame that the hospital had set for a reaction to show, and we were basically sent off with a message of "no lactose intolerance". However, as we were about to leave the hospital, my son had to rush to the bathroom with stomach aches and diarrhea. When I brought it to the nurses' attention, I was simply told that it was not related, because it was after the "reaction time frame" which had been set by the doctor.
After the advice of the doctors I slowly introduced dairy into my son's diet again, but my son's reactions with stomach aches and diarrhea made it very clear that we had to stay refrain from products such as milk, ice cream, yogurt etc. Fortunately the first lactose free milk product was introduced in the country not long after the entire "lactose intolerance testing", and my son was happy to get real milk again.
After our return to Florida, my son's doctor quickly diagnosed him with lactose intolerance. Once we started introducing regular milk into our youngest son's diet, he too was diagnosed with lactose intolerance.
A few years later we added a third son to our family, but this time we knew what would happen, so we were prepared. Sure enough our third son had the same reaction to a lactose diet as our other sons and my husband - lactose intolerance definitely runs in our family.
I do most of our cooking from scratch, which helps out keeping track of the lactose intake, and when we are out the kids have learned that moderation is the key. The kids also know that if they do not watch what they eat, they will likely have a reaction later on. While we used to stick to sorbet, my kids are now able to get ice cream thanks to the Breyers lactose free ice cream. If they get ice cream, whenever we are out, it is very likely that it will come back to haunt them later on.
Lactose intolerance is manageable, and there is no reason for anyone to sacrifice their favorite foods because of a lactose intolerance diagnosis. In our family we have learned that it is all about moderation, finding a balance and being knowledgeable about the foods that we surround ourselves with.
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