I had not had milk in quite a while. I am just not a milk person. My oldest recollections of lactose intolerance are so vivid that if I didn’t fight them hard enough, I would still feel the unpleasantness and waves of nausea at the slight mention of the word milk; and I can still see myself gaze away from the incoherent blackboard and out the class window, unable to focus on days when I had a glass of milk before rushing to the school bus.
Back then, few people knew about lactose intolerance; Even fewer could fathom such a thing as ADHD (Not attention deficit at all actually but selective attention because of an attention overdrive). Unfortunately, my sweet overzealous mother was neither. Milk was the rave, an ideal solution for every health concern affecting a “normal” child. A full glass, the fresher the better! On lucky days, I got cereals to drown the taste and that addition for an ADHD child was enough to cause an unshakeable nausea and multiply my inability to concentrate by at least a hundred times over. Give milk to an ADHD/lactose intolerant child and you get a perfect recipe for disaster, a totally disconcerted, moody and completely distracted little creature. For years, I believed nausea was quite the normal way to feel, not knowing any better.
Why am I writing about milk? Because as I searched for a late night snack in my pantry last night, I found a huge colorful box of cereals I had, but never reached for. I succumbed, only wanting to try a little bowl. People are always counting the merits of a bowl of cereals and milk. You can imagine -maybe not- , I had a bad night. My ears whistled an annoying tune, a couple of channels in my head snapped on all together and nausea stuck around for a few hours. My tummy was not happy; a reaction to casein, the primary protein in milk. Casein is also the reason why most protein shakes and bars make me nauseous and unproductive. The bad aftertaste is just a minor inconvenience. On the other hand, cheese doesn’t affect me the same way. Cheese casein isn’t the same as milk casein.
If you have felt this way after absorbing milk, perhaps it’s a good idea to go on a milk free diet for a week and observe any changes.