Hospital has said to avoid lactose temporarily

[Gigi00]

DS (12 months) was admitted into hospital from vomiting and diarrhoea that went on for a long period of time, he needed hydration due to not keeping anything down, he is much better now.

The hospital doctor has told us to go lactose free for 4-6 weeks once his stool returns to normal.

Has anyone else experienced this? Once we stopped dairy he stopped vomiting and the diarrhoea, it was a sickness bug originally as i also caught it from him.

Were you able to move back to dairy afterwards?

This isn't unusual, I know a few babies who have had sickness bugs and then developed lactose intolerances. They've varied in terms of length of return to normal. Some it was a few weeks, one it was months and months. I'd follow their advice and then reintroduce slowly and see what happens.

Yes this can happen and should be able to re-introduce at some point

Yes we've had this twice with my now 2.5 year old, two weeks off dairy each time and then back to normal.

Yeah, temporary lactose intolerance is not uncommon after a tummy bug.

Thanks all

Secondary lactose intolerance is quite common.
There is a lactose ladder for reintroducing lactose, even if you don't follow it to the letter starting with things that are more processed where the lactose is broken down and working up to purer forms would be a good idea when you do start to reintroduce it.

Something to watch for is cows milk proteins. They might have become intolerant to the proteins not the, or not just, the milk sugars. It might be worth going completely dairy free first and then test the lactose free products.

Yep, happened to my daughter too. Was fine after two weeks.

You can buy lactaze enzymes. When you are ready to try reintroducing keep a bottle handy and dose with it if they get diarrhoea again.