For those of you who don't know or haven't heard, I am lactose intolerant. And for those of you who know how many other things my body won't tolerate you are probably thinking that life wouldn't be worth living anymore. Lol. I must admit that it was pretty discouraging to discover that, on top of everything else, I am now lactose intolerant. I am allergic to all raw fruits and vegetables, animals with fur, laytex, pollen (hay fever), nuts, nickel, and probably some other things I am just not thinking of right now, as well as having a body that does not tolerate oils and sugars very well. I must say, it is an excellent "excuse" to have to eat right!
But anyways, after I had Abrielle I started noticing that I was cramping every single day. I didn't think too much of it because I have heard that it can take quite a while for your body to get back to normal. But when things were still not normal after 3 months had gone by and I was spending every day with cramp discomfort, I started to worry.
We threw a big birthday party for my husband's best friend Mike at the beginning of June. Naturally, we had cake and ice cream to celebrate. Thus proceeded one of the worst nights of my life. I was up for two hours straight in the middle of the night with pains so severe that I was just hunched over in the bathroom crying. You would think that this would have made me lean more heavily towards the possibility of lactose intolerance but my body has been reacting badly to ice cream for some time now, so I still wasn't sure. This was just a REALLY bad reaction.
A while after this I started thinking about the fact that I have a nutritional shake for breakfast every morning that is mixed with milk. Just as an experiment (that is the scientist in me still) I bought some rice milk and tried mixing that with my shake powder to see if it made any kind of difference. And what do you know? The first day I didn't cramp all morning came to pass!
This is the "Uh-Oh" point. The point where you realize "Uh oh, I have an idea now of what is going on." This is where the Lactase Experiment comes in. Word of mouth got to me about these amazing lactase enzyme pills that you take with your first bite of food that contains dairy to prevent lactose intolerant reactions. My mom picked a huge box up for me last night and we tested it out by throwing a whammy at it - a casserole dish that had milk, sour cream, cream of chicken, and cheese in it! (very good casserole, by the way)
Experiment results? A really weird sensation in my stomach like it wanted to bloat and get gassy and cramp, but it didn't happen! (In retrospect I probably should've taken 2 when throwing a dairy monstrosity at my body, but it was important to know how intolerant my body would be.) BUT IT WORKED!!!! For the first time in I don't even know how long, I felt good yesterday evening!
I am so excited to have found such a simple solution to this problem. It was so amazing to be able to eat the things I loved again last night. My body still won't tolerate bad oils (meaning no fried foods, including french fries) or refined sugars (which means ice cream is still pretty much out of the question) but I have a solution to at least one problem. Plus, since lactase is an enzyme that is supposed to occur naturally in your body it is safe to take in any situation.
As an interesting twist to the story, we are starting to think that Jake is lactose intolerant as well. He was feeling pretty yucky after dinner yesterday and I gave him one of the lactase pills to try (just to see) and he felt much better afterwards. Pretty crazy!
Thanks to those that have kept us in your prayers! We are so thankful for the blessings our Father in Heaven has given us!
Love Shayla and the rest of the Jacob Bentley Family
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