IBS or dairy intolerance???

Since for ever ive had to do number 2's about half an hour after eating...if that wasnt fun enough throw in a cyst on the bowel and then major surgery when a fistual formed and stitch tightening commenced every 4 weeks.

For the last 6 months Ive noticed its been happening alot after havinga coffee or milk drinks. I personally dont eat alot of cheese, cream ect as in the past I always thought Id do number 2's to much and put it down to just eating.

Stupidly enough I drnak a glass of strawberry big M with mini me this afternoon and have had stomach cramps were I could scream and spent the last half an hour warming the toilet seat and feeding it fluids IFYKWIM ;)

so do you think its a dairy intolerance or IBS I have? man why does life need to be so complicated :dunno:

Sounds like Lactose intollerace. Thats what was happening to me when I had bad lactose intollerance - man it really was the pits :( DH has a similar reaction but his is to pork :lol:

There are things you can do to help - there are tablets called lactase which contain the enzyme whic breaks down the lactose so if you just 'have' to have a hit of dairy (I love my cheese) then you can take them and it will reduce the effect. Otherwise take dairy out of your diet completely, or switch to lactose free milk. There are a number of types in the supermarket. We are all LI in this household so we just get that instead of normal milk - and it is long life as well so we always keep a couple in the cupboard incase we run out.

Peppermint tea helps with the cramps I found as well. And green tea...

Hope this helps :)

ETA - Coffee makes me go too, well the first one of the day does, so I can time when I need to go ;) I believe it is the caffee in it which does that, but don't quote me on it

It's one of those things that is hard to differentiate, unless you eliminate one to see if it makes a difference. But After coffee- it could be due to the coffee cos it is a stimulant and so therefore stimulates the bowel. As for milk drink depends also what the drink contains, as it could be containing something that does it. DH used to get severe diarrhoea after drinking milk/milk products- so he had lactose free milk (which basically contains the lactase enzyme) (you can also buy this in tablet form). Anyway it must have rebuillt up the enzymes in his stomach because now he doesn't have a problem. Ok so that probably wasn't very helpful.

Google lacteeze hun, the symptoms sound very much like lactose intolarance. This is the stuff DS was on full time untill he could handle small amounts of lactose. Makes all the difference and you can get the tabs from the health food shop here or the chemist

Maz, adults do lost some of their lactase as they get older, so become able to handle less lactose over time. Sometimes this leads to total lactose intolerance and sometimes it just means they can tolerate less lactose. Your symptoms sound similar to lactose intolerance but as the others have said, you can only know for sure with a true elimination diet -where all lactose is removed and then re-introduced. And it's not just dairy that you have to avoid. It could also be cows' milk protein intolerance and there are two proteins, so after an elimination diet some people find they can reintroduce some dairy foods without an issue.

I hope you can figure it out because not being able to drink coffee would be a disaster!!