Lactose intolerant or Gluten ( or both )?

[marne2]

Hi, I have been having problems for a while and have noticed that the symptoms are worse after eating/drinking lactose but have also had similar symptoms after eating bread and cake. If I have cereal and milk for breakfast I spend most of the day on the loo, am bloated and have terrible wind ( poor dh ) ,the past 2 weeks it seems to be worse, today I went to Starbucks and had a hot chocolate with cream and a cake ( so milk and gluten ) and after a hour or 2 I have all the above symptoms.

I want to trial 'not eating/drinking lactose and cutting out gluten' but not sure how to go about it, do I cat out the lactose first ( as I think that's the main problem ) and then try gluten, or should I just cut out both and see how it goes?

Does lactose free milk taste any different?

You can get lactose intolerant on the back of coeliacs disease. Maybe get an over the counter coeliacs test or go to the docs. I don't think DIY food exclusion diets are that helpful tbh. Just my opinion.

I've never been diagnosed lactose intolerant by a hcp. A couple of days of no dairy proved conclusively that that was the issue. Although it turns out I'm completely intolerant to dairy as even the lactofree stuff makes me ill.

You have nothing to lose cutting dairy out for 2 or 3 days. If that doesn't fix you see your GP to discuss gluten. But beware. Dairy is every bloody where so you have to read ingredients on everything.

I went to the GP with similar symptoms and although a coeliac test was negative I'm convinced that it is gluten and or dairy related. I've been following a GF/DF diet for a couple of weeks and have seen a large improvement. I've been referred to a dietician who I'm seeing next week. My thoughs are to try reintroducing them separately with a gap of several days to see what happens. It is worth seeing your GP first as I understand that you need to be eating gluten regularly for several weeks beforehand for the coeliac test to be reliable and they hay want to run other blood tests (mine identified low Vitamin D and B12 levels).

Oh, and I've not tried lactose free dairy milk but have tried coconut, rice and almond milks from the free from section in the supermarket. The rice milk is my favourite so far and I can't really tell the difference on my porridge.

I think it's hard to find sights of a intolerance through testing, it doesn't always show up like a allergy would?

So, today I have gone dairy free, I don't feel bloated, I don't feel sick and I'm not breaking wind every few minutes ( sorry if TMI ), I have eaten gluten so so far it seems dairy or lactose may be the problem, although I'm pleased that I may have found what's been making me poorly, I am gutted that I may not be able to eat all the yummy things at Christmas ( I may have to change my christmas food order ), I don't eat tons of dairy anyway but I do enjoy cheese and cream at Christmas .

Pfft, cheese is over rated.

(Lies all lies, but pretending to believe it is better than an hour or so on the loo)

It's great that going dairy free seems to be resolving the issues - you can always trial small amounts of better tolerated dairy (hard cheese has relatively little lactose I think) to see if they are okay. I don't think the blood tests identify intolerances but they may indicate other things that might be linked or causing the issues so help the GP rule other things out. It is probably worth seeing a GP anyway for advice.