Cure For Lactose Intolerance

 

Before I explain my story, you probably already know what lactose intolerance is, right? But if you don't know, I would like to define lactose intolerance (or LI)  for you. First of all in technical terms lactose is a complex sugar, a disaccharide, C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ found in milk. If you break it down into its smaller parts, it is basically made up of two sugars: galactose and glucose.  When you drink milk your body’s enzyme lactase begins to break it down so your stomach can digest it. For those people who become LI, their bodies have varying degrees of lactase generation. The less the body produces, the more pain the person seems to experience. The discomfort can range from mild to acute pain. Once this discomfort starts, there is nothing that will rid the pain other than waiting for the body to do its natural  expel functions. In my case, if you put the pain on a 1 to 10 scale, my rating would have been a 10. Now for my story.

 

As I was growing up in grade school, I can remember everyday at recess we always had milk and cookies or cake. And, everyday after recess, I was fine. I didn’t get any stomach aches, stomach gurgling or anything. I enjoyed my recess-time refreshments.

 

High school was different. At the time I didn’t know it, but my body was going through a change. In my sophomore year, I remember feeling sick always after breakfast. I usually had a Danish  and milk. Sometimes scrambled eggs and toast and milk. I didn’t get really bad pains during high school, but by my junior and senior years, I started getting bloating and a gurgling stomach. Little did I know, not only was the milk was causing the problems, but also the Danish rolls and the scrambled eggs because these foods also  contained either butter or milk. I was getting a double whammy of good old lactose. It was like getting punched in the stomach a few times, but not very hard.

 

In college I figured out my LI problem. It didn’t happen until my sophomore year. One day I was reading this health article about lactose intolerance. I don’t remember now what publication I saw it in, but basically the article said if you experience bloating, gurgling stomach, stomach pain, and diarrhea you may have lactose intolerance, the inability to digest the sugar in milk. Then it hit me. Hey, that sounds just like me! So for the next few weeks, I experimented. I drank small amounts of milk, about an ounce or less, over a few days. And, sure enough I got that sick feeling I felt in high school. And found that the pain I experienced was directly proportionate to the amount of milk I drank. The more milk I drank, the more pain I'd experienced. I did see doctors while in college. But since I was going away for school, for whatever reason, I did not see my own family doctor to confirm my diagnosis. But I felt I didn’t have to. The scenario was simple: I drink milk; I get sick. I did visit the college’s Health Clinic doctors and took allergy tests. You know, the scratch tests. Milk did not show up in any of their tests. When I think back now, I don’t remember allergy testing for different foods. 

 

Seven years later after college I just about gave up on milk. By this time my sensitivity to milk had graduated from somewhat sensitive to acutely sensitive. I was at the point where as soon as I had some dairy product, I could start timing how long before my stomach would feel like it was going to burst with pain. Twenty minutes; that’s how quickly it would hit. Instead of dairy products, I tried the milk substitutes like soy milk, Milk Dream®, Tofutti® and others. I was checking every food container label to see what was in the ingredients. I learned to avoid things that contained whey, cream, butter, milk, cheese, monosodium glutamate (MSG), caramel etc. By the way, not too many people know it, but MSG contains lactose as a sweetener. MSG is in just about every food that is processed in mass from canned soup to potato chips. I had to eliminate lots of different breakfast cereals too. Most of them mainly the granolas contained powdered milk. Even in powdered form, milk still contains lactose.

 

Ever visit a French restaurant? The majority of items on their menu have milk, cream, or butter in them. I eliminated French restaurants from my dining list of restaurants. But every restaurant I visited, I had to always ask the server, what is this or that made with? It became a way of life. At Chinese restaurants we had to ask the server to leave out the MSG. At Italian restaurants, I had to avoid most of the creamy sauces and the desserts. At breakfast restaurants like Denny’s and IHOP, I requested they made my meal with vegetable oil in lieu of butter.

 

Everything made at home had to be lactose free as you could guess. When we met with relatives around the holidays my wife would sometimes have to make two versions of food like mash potatoes. One would be made with milk and butter; and the other would have my name on it because it was without the dairy stuff. My family is lucky because they are LI free.

 

In the summer of 2000, my sister-in-law called me and told me about her husband’s relatives who were cured for LI. “Really?” I said in disbelief. “Yes really!” she said. “His aunt and her two kids could not eat ice cream or any other dairy products just like you. They saw a doctor, went through about five treatments and can now have ice cream with no illness. Why don’t you check it out? It is a process called NAET.” NAET  I was skeptical. N-A-E-T huh? So I started my research. I found out about the process. NAET stands for Namubudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique. The doctor who founded the process uses acupuncture and her office is in Los Angeles! She also wrote a book: “Say Goodbye to Illness” by Devi Nambudripad.

 

I read the book. It turns out that this doctor views every ailment as some form of allergy. LI is viewed as nothing more than an allergy. Her treatment is the same for each ailment using acupuncture. My family and I were going to visit my wife’s sister and her husband in the summer of 2000. They happen to live in LA. My sister-in-law suggested I pay this NAET office a visit. And I did. I told them I was only there for the week. They gave me four treatments. By the weekend it was unbelievable! I was at the San Diego Zoo. My wife was having some fruit smoothie that contained ice cream. I drank about an ounce to test out my new system. I made sure I was near a bathroom because I knew I only had 20 minutes before I would get a reaction; and, nothing! I waited another 20 minutes just to be sure this wasn’t a fluke; and, nothing! So I had more of her smoothie; two ounces this time. I waited  the first 20 minutes: nothing; then one hour passed; then two hours, then three hours, still no reaction! That evening I had two scoops of ice cream for dessert after dinner. I waited my 20 minutes and nothing. A couple of hours after leaving the restaurant I was still fine. I was cured!