New to lactose intolerance...a couple of questions

[McGucks]

I am 41 and only started having trouble with milk/ice cream after the birth of my second child (20 months ago).

Why can I eat cheese, cream cheese, and cottage cheese with no trouble, but even a tablespoon of ice cream does me in?  I literally will have gas and bloating within 5 minutes.  I don't understand.  I guess maybe there is a difference in the enzymes or something? 

Also, I drink cream in my coffee every morning and have no trouble with that.  Why?

TIA for anyone's input!

[kitchensqueen]

My husband and I both became lactose intolerant in our early twenties, and it started off with us having trouble with ice cream and straight milk. A lot of people who are lactose intolerant can have small amounts of milk product without it bothering them at all or to badly, which is likely why the tiny bit of cream in your morning coffee isn't making you sick. Different kinds of dairy products also have different levels of lactose - cultured dairy like yogurt and hard cheeses have the smallest amounts. Here's some great info from the Mayo Clinic on the subject. 

We've pretty much eliminated dairy from our diets entirely, and we don't really miss it. Products I've found that are close to the real deal are Earth Balance margarine, Soya Kaas cheese, and soy milk. Earth Balance margarine can be hard to find and is pretty expensive, but the Fleischman's stick butter (the one in the green package, not the red) is decent for cooking and baking - but I don't use it a spreadable margarine; only the Earth Balance tastes good enough for that. Just use them where you would use the dairy product in your cooking. If you're a cereal eater, I'd recommend the vanilla flavored soy milk though - I personally cannot just drink a glass of it, but it's great in cooking. 

Also, The Milk Free Kitchen is my go to cookbook, especially for the baked goods. You'd never know the recipes were dairy free unless someone told you.

[McGucks]

Hey KitchenQueen--THANK YOU!!!  What an awesome response.  Thanks, too, for the product and cookbook recommendations.  I didn't know about the differing levels of lactose.

May I ask whether you and your husband's got progressively worse?  I am kind of wondering what to expect in terms of progression.

Again, thanks for your knowledgeable response.

[kitchensqueen]

No problem. We were totally devastated when we had to cut dairy and for awhile we thought we would be doomed to eating boring crap. Completely not so though! I don't think it got worse for us - it was pretty much all or nothing in both our cases. Now that we've been dairy-free for so long (almost ten years) we can both handle small amounts every once in a great while without too much trouble, though my husband is more sensitive to it than I am. You might be okay just cutting out the ice cream and straight milk - as a matter of fact, you should try that first. If you find that you can handle things like yogurt and cheese, keep on with them. If you still feel sick, eliminate the soft cheeses next, then hard cheese, then yogurt and so on, until you find a level that's comfortable for you. Good luck! Being dairy free is certainly not the culinary wasteland it once was. :-) 

[SweetSilver]

I've noticed this, too.  There are different degrees of lactose intolerance.  Some people can produce small amounts of the enzyme needed to digest lactose and so aren't 100% lactose intolerant.  (I call myself "lactose impaired".)  These folks, like me and you, can eat small amounts of dairy without much difficulty as long as they are mindful of types and quantity.  And yes, not all dairy products are created equal.  Cultured dairy will have less lactose to digest and so more can be eaten without symptoms (the culture feeds on the sugars present in milk).  It is a bit odd, I think, some of the differences, such as the one between plain cream and ice cream.  You need to look at the ingredients.  Most ice "cream" has little actual cream in it and is made mostly with milk.  Cream has a higher fat content and far less lactose than plain milk.