How to Evaluate Your Lactose Intolerance Symptoms

Are you tired of feeling like the food you're eating is making you sick? Do you love to enjoy foods like cheesy burritos, ice cream, and breakfast cereal with fresh cold milk, but then, you spend the next couple of hours with digestive discomfort?

Lactose intolerance affects millions of people around the world. While lactose intolerance symptoms are not dangerous, they can be very annoying, and cause you to avoid the foods you love. In some cases, getting a lactose intolerance test is the easiest way to figure out what's going on.

Are You Suffering from Lactose Intolerance Symptoms?

Doctors and experts agree that there are a whole host of lactose intolerance symptoms. Symptoms you experience may be different than the ones your friends with lactose intolerance may experience. One of the only ways to truly determine whether you're suffering from lactose intolerance symptoms is to experiment with a lactose free diet. This would mean giving up dairy products for at least a week, and recording what you eat and how you feel. Afterward, you would return to consuming dairy products and continue recording what you eat and how you feel. If you notice your digestive discomfort symptoms subsided when you didn't consume dairy, then you know you're most like lactose intolerant.

Do You Need a Lactose Intolerance Test?

If after experimenting with a lactose free diet, you notice you felt much better while not consuming dairy products, you may want to confirm your suspicions with a lactose intolerance test performed by your doctor or a trained allergist. There are two main types of lactose intolerance tests:

• Lactose tolerance blood test
• Hydrogen breath test

In most cases, the hydrogen breath lactose intolerance test is the method that allergists prefer to use. During this test, patients are asked to breathe into a balloon, so the doctor can obtain a baseline reading of their body's natural hydrogen levels. Then, the patient will be asked to drink a beverage containing lactose. After a few minutes, they will breathe into the balloon again. Hydrogen levels before and after will be compared to determine if the body is having trouble breaking down lactose.

What to do if the Lactose Intolerance Test is Positive:

If you find out you are lactose intolerant, the best way to avoid digestive discomfort will be to cut dairy products from your diet. There are many dairy substitutes on the market that make it easier for you to change your diet. If you don't want to give up dairy, you should at least lower the amount of milk-based products you eat.

Some people use probiotics as a natural remedy.* Probiotics can help restore your body's natural balance and assist your body in breaking down highly processed foods, such as dairy.* When you take probiotics, you increase the number of beneficial bacteria living in your digestive system to help break down lactose sugar.* If you choose to continue consuming dairy products, these probiotics will be able to support the breaking down of milk and lactose into forms that your body will be able to more readily absorb.*

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