Thursday 1 June 2017

Maybe things aren't as bad as I thought

So I did a bit of reading last night because I thought my sudden lactose intolerance was more than a little unlikely. It turns out that there are certain circumstances where lactose intolerance can actually be temporary!

I read all about sudden onset lactose intolerance, its rare but not impossible but most importantly it is also likely that if your lactose intolerance came on suddenly, it will go away over time.

I then looked at causes of sudden onset lactose intolerance and it turns out that a severe GI upset can cause it because it can unbalance the enzymes and bacteria in your gut. Well guess who had food poisoning just a few days before this all started? Yup, this girl.

We had Chinese food for dinner three weeks ago and I was so ill afterwards, genuinely the most throwing up I have ever done. This went on for 48 hours. At first I didn't think it was food poisoning because having spent most of my life in the food industry before going on to become a nurse, I know that usually food poisoning takes at least 24 - 48 hours to develop after you have eaten the meal that caused it. I had become ill within a few hours. However just as I was getting better the other half started throwing up just as violently as I had been and I decided that it simply had to be food poisoning, maybe I was just more sensitive to this particular bacteria or something.

So from what I read the best thing to do is to give my system a break from lactose to let the enzymes build back up. There is no way of knowing how long I need to take this break for, its just trial and error unfortunately so I thought I would give it a week and see how it goes. If there is no improvement, I will try another week. It actually doesn't seem that hard since I don't necessarily need to cut lactose out completely, just cut it right down. I already bought lacto free milk and butter so all I really need to avoid is cheese for a week, surely I can manage that?

4 comments:

  1. That almost sounds like the norovirus symptoms I had a few years ago, as that was violent sudden-onset nastiness. I'd just about wish that on my worst enemy, if I'm honest.

    If it's any help, my friend who is lactose intolerant can still enjoy cheese, she just has to be careful how much and which variety.

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  2. I definitely didn't have norovirus, there is no way there could be an outbreak in the city without me knowing about it with my work and there definitely isn't one at the moment, it's a bit early in the year for it. I have nursed several people with norovirus and its so awful.

    I am seriously hoping my lactose intolerance is temporary but I am totally convinced that's what this is because I had cheese with my nightshift dinner (did things on auto pilot due to tiredness and didn't think) and yet again my stomach was upset so lactose must be to blame!

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  3. It did sound like norovirus. One of my sons had it a couple of years ago and the rest of us stayed away from him and didn't catch it. I have had norovirus too and it was dreadful! But I kept my hands washed and wiped everything down and nobody else in the house caught it. Hope you get your lactose tolerance back soon. I think yogurt is supposed to be ok, if you can eat that?

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  4. unfortunately yogurt isn't ok, I actually like plain yogurt in my granola for my breakfast at work if I am dayshift but that's setting my stomach off at the moment because there is lactose in the yogurt.

    I have found that it definitely depends on the amount, if I have a tea or coffee I'm fine but if I have a few cuppas over the day it starts getting problematic as the day goes on. I have lacto free milk at home but never took any to work because I usually drink at most two cups of either coffee or tea on nightshift but we have had a reasonably quiet last two days which has involved a lot of tea drinking

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