Eliminating Dairy in DD for a Week- What to Expect?

My daughter has had to undergo several food elimination trials (one food at a time).

First, you should know that one week is generally considered insufficient for a food elimination. Many elimination trials consist of a 3 or 4 week (or more) period of time.

Second, just to be clear - it's more than milk, cheese and butter. Look up all the words that indicate dairy (whey, casein, etc) on a reputable website (Mayo Clinic etc) and be sure that you are eliminating all those sources. That's the only way you'll be assured of a dairy-free trial.

Third, keep a journal, a food log. And be specific. If your daughter is out with friends and can't (or won't) write down PRECISELY what she's eating, have her take a photo with her phone of either the foods or the item on the menu that she ordered. Later, you both can enter the foods into the journal. You may notice other culprits on the food journal. If she's eating only snack food and processed foods and "junk" food, and drinking diet sodas, the answer may be as simple as swapping in some fresh vegetables and fresh fruits and eliminating the diet/sugar-free stuff.

My daughter does not have an intolerance to dairy or most of the foods that we tried eliminating, but she does have a severe and debilitating and documented intolerance to the artificial sweeteners (all the xylitols, mannitols, sorbitols, sucralose, aspartame, etc). They give her extreme stomach pain and intestinal cramps. If your daughter is chewing sugar free gum and downing sugar free sodas, and eating "diet" foods (low-fat sour cream, fat-free cheeses, etc, which often can contain artificial sugars), that might be where the problem lies. And it can be tricky. For example, I recently saw a coffee creamer that said "sugar free" on the label (I don't use it, but I happened to notice it). But in the ingredients list was "sucralose" which is Splenda. So you might have your daughter examine her sugar free habits, and have her drink water, orange juice or sparkling (non-flavored, non-sweetened) water, with maybe some fruit in it. And skip the sugar free gum/mints/candies. They can really be painful for many people.

Hope that helps!

I was "lucky"??? If you can call dairy sensitivity lucky, that mine didn't hit until my 30s. After DS was born, I can no longer handle soft cheese, a second slice of pizza, more than a tablespoon of ice cream, or a sip of milk (hard cheeses and yogurt I can still tolerate). I can choose not to eat the dairy because I know I'd rather not suffer the consequences. Unless/ until the benefits outweigh the consequences, it will be hard for her to walk the better path.

other tips- I'd give it three weeks to see if it is really making a difference.
I'd encourage her to first eat something high fiber/ healthy before going for the dairy/ junkie food. i.e. have an apple before the party, a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. up the healthy fiber intake and there will be less room for junk.

best,
F. B.

Grandson #2 had a milk allergy so I am use to reading labels. Please know up front that there is a lot of milk in products you wouldn't think would contain milk. Make sure she understands that going dairy free isn't just not having milk and cheese. Also make sure you add a lot of fruits and veggies which will help with fiber and will make her feel much better.

You should look for her to not feel crappy after she eats, basically.
Less stomach inflammation. Less bowel issues. It will be evident pretty quickly. BTW, the happens even in healthy people that don't have "dairy issues". It's just not that good for you.

The good news is that these days, its pretty easy to make changes without drastically affecting lifestyle or cooking. I use coconut milk in everything instead of regular milk (I find the taste is less strong than an almond milk, for instance), and lactose free cheese, butter and sour cream are everywhere.

If she's feeling good after a week and somewhat regular, just stick with it.

The timetable on response is largely based on how much inflammation is present. You can't see that or measure it. So every response is different. And that's if you find the trigger food on the first go-round, which you may or may not do.

So there are 2 ways to go: 1 is elimination diets, and 2 is using nutrition and super foods for anti-inflammation (so adding rather than eliminating). If you are hearing anything about epigenetics, you'll know that this is the new and very promising approach to the various factors that affect our epigenome, which controls gene expression. It's damaged by so many things - environment, toxins, illness, heredity, stress, aging, trauma, etc. And it's a key factor in inflammation. It can be reversed but the timetable is individual (how much damage so far, how many other conditions) and how hard you work at it.

So if things don't work out for a week, that may or may not mean anything. It may or may not mean that dairy isn't the cause and that gluten is the next culprit. Yes, her period could be a factor too. But more likely is that there is so much "sludge" in the digestive tract (like most people) that a few days of 'clearing out' is of limited value. That's why these trendy cleanses are generally ridiculous - it takes much longer than that to undo what's going on inside. I usually advise people to take at least 3 months with a good digestive product with soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, digestive herbs and enzymes, etc. Sometimes it's faster, but often it is not. I usually don't have people remove any dietary items unless there's an extremely strong and unquestioned intolerance.

I'm not sure if this helps or no, but I have lactose intolerance as did my dad and two of my kids. I don't know if she lactose intolerance or not - but my kids have gas, bloating, cramps, and either constipation or diarrhea when they eat dairy. They have even vomited.

We just had to switch to lactose free products. They drink the lactose free milk etc. and take a Lactaid pill I think it is before eating dairy. It's helped considerably. We didn't really have to drastically change our diet.

The one thing with fibre is to really up the water intake. Otherwise it can almost make things worse.

Just don't be surprised if she's acting like she's doing it at home but eating the same stuff she's always eating with her friends. I did stuff like that when I was a teen just to get my mom to leave me alone.