Celiac and Lactose intolerance

Celiac and Lactose intolerance

For those who have celiac disease you may have noticed an inability to deal with lactose in milk, butter, and ice cream.  Cheeses are fine but products that deal with lactose directly might start to make them sick after a few months of being gluten free.  For some this came before the Gluten allergy, this post is about those that had the issue digesting lactose after being gluten free. 

This is what happened to me.  I have spent my entire life drinking milk and consuming it in many forms.  Then I started to get sick when I ingested lactose.  Since I eat many lactose containing products this was worrisome.  I had a couple of choices, those would be to either cut direct sources of lactose from my diet and/ or deal with it, or I needed to find a way around the issue.  The first thing I did was find out what was going on. 

The reason I was now lactose intolerant is because of the damage that gluten had done to my microvilli.  That it was now just showing its self means that the damage done was starting to heal, it takes time for this to heal and since it was in no position to do its job means that I can't handle straight lactose.  However, with the help of pro-biotics often found in live culture yogurts (gluten free of course) I have been able to handle milk products. 

By eating one yogurt a day I can then eat gluten containing products.  However, if I miss my daily yogurt I feel it if I eat lactose.  Once I made sure that this was how it worked by testing on myself I had to share.  If you are gluten free and have discovered recently that lactose is starting to bother you.  Give eating a yogurt a day a chance.  If you can't handle the regular yogurt at first they do make lactose free yogurts with active cultures. I am not talking the fad use of yogurt; I am talking about helping those that would not otherwise have an issue with lactose.  Feel free to try for yourself and see if it works for you.