Milk Does A Body Good... Sometimes

I've had another reason to be so very thankful as I have had reason to be in almost everything that surrounds our little gift called Laura. It seems that part of the reason she's here with us is to remind me regularly about being thankful. And I do mean thankful. Not only is she here, alive and well, but she's not the vegetable that they warned us she'd be. Nor is she even vaguely 'in need of intensive intervention' as they claimed, in writing no less, that she'd be for the rest of her life. Yes, we have much to be thankful for when it comes to Laura. In fact her middle name means "God's Promise" and indeed he is keeping his promise to bless her life.

Laura lives on dairy products. I do mean just that. She drinks several glasses of milk a day and loves yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese and ice cream. On any given day she has at least one meal, and more often two, that are centered around dairy. Her bones aren't lacking. That's for sure. But her tummy was suffering. We just didn't know enough to figure that out.

When she was a baby she was on special formula. We transitioned her off of that on to milk and she's had it ever since. She supplements with pediasure but that's not common, and she loves the stuff. So it never occurred to us that it could be causing her problems. Recently, 'My tummy hurts' was a common refrain. At first I thought it was for attention and Don thought not. Then, over time, he began to agree with my position and I began to move over to his side. LOL The final straw for me was having her curled up in my arms, content at the individual attention while guzzling her last glass of milk for the day, and turning to me 10 minutes later crying because her stomach hurt. I suspected we had a problem - with milk! UGH!

After consulting with her Ped we put her back on prevacid for a few weeks and the complaining did go down some. But it didn't disappear. So we moved on to Plan B. We cut out lactose. The change was immediate. Her breath, which has long smelled like something died in there, didn't smell at all. Her diapers became normal. Regularly. As in all of the time normal. No loosie goosies at all. And not a complaint about her tummy. Not a one. Nada. Nyet. Nothing. I think we have found the problem.

So once again we are thankful. Thankful that she's a normal, healthy three year old with only a lactose intolerance. She's not dealing with something even more difficult to handle like celiacs, and she's not allergic to milk. She just can't digest her lactose. How wonderful is that? She'll be fine. We'll all make some adjustments and we'll go from there. Life goes on. The Lord is so good. So very good. I know. I have a constant reminder living right here with me. :)