Anything wrong with this plan?

[NilaJones]

Hello everyone .

I am doing an elimination diet, and have found many foods I react to. One I do not react to (in the typical-to-me way of increased inflammation and maybe fatigue) is milk. However, in quantities over a spoonful, it makes me very nauseous about an hour after ingestion.

If I take it daily, the nausea disappears, and if I stop it comes back. I am thinking that with daily increasing dosage I might be able to incorporate it as a normal part of my diet, which would be great because my diet is now severely limited, and I cannot make much progress with it due to an injury.

I'm thinking that the nausea is due to insufficient gut bacteria of some type, and that it goes away because they multiply.

Does this all make sense? Or is there something I am not understanding, something that I should be watching out for? Y'all know a lot more than I do about gut stuff, and I'd appreciate any insights .

 

[Beyond]

Hmm you did well re asking about this. If you have an allergy or intolerance to milk increasing the amount and frequency will only make matters worse.

Personally I avoid dairy because it is a nono for leaky gut plus I am highly intolerant to lactoglobulin according to testing. I recommend to avoid dairy if you have gut issues for sure, because of casein and stuff. It cannot be avoided ALWAYS, but almost always is good enough for me to keep some sanity .

To minimize impact fermented with live bacteria/yeast and raw milk products are best. Raw milk kefir is amazing in my experience, but getting raw milk is pretty hard.

 

[Aileen]

What you are describing is called "masking". You eating something on a regular basis and don't feel well but don't know what it is. Then you stop eating that food for a week. Then you try it again and WHAM! you get hit hard with one or more symptoms. Before it was hidden, but by stopping it and letting it get out of your system, the next time you ate it it's effects became obvious or "unmasked".

If you go back to eating it regularly, things will go back to the way they were. You likely won't get hit so hard each time you eat it, but it will be continually contributing to your ill health. I'm afraid you're going to have to stay away from it for awhile.

Sometimes you have to give up a food permanently but not always. Often if you avoid it for several months, you find that it's okay again as long as you don't eat it too often. You just have to try it and if it still causes trouble wait a few more months then test it again. Sometimes it takes several years before you can reintroduce something.

 

[WillowJ]

nausea could be an intolerance but there are two other possibilities (in addition to masking, allergy, or intolerance).

the sugar in milk is digested by an enzyme called lactase (because it "cuts" lactose). Lasctase is not made if it is not needed (if no milk / lactose is present). One will normally have symptoms upon re-introducing milk, because there is a delay while lactase is made. If the symptoms disappear entirely within 2-3 days after re-introduction (or after increasing the dose), this could be what is going on.

If your stomach is inflamed for any reason (a healthy person example would be gastritis or "stomach flu" [not related to influenza so not actually a flu]), it may reject milk (this particularly can cause nausea), but if the inflammation improves then the milk tolerance will usually improve after a while.