Category Archives: Dairy

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We eliminated dairy from our house for many, many months.  Slowly, with experimentation, we have found some sources that agree with most of us in the house.  I appreciate the vitamin K2 and butyrate found in select dairy products that are grass-fed and/or aged, and so I would like some dairy in my kids’ diets.  Dairy is not mandatory for health, and if it causes you symptoms, you have some more work to do before adding it back in.  But if it honestly causes no symptoms on close scrutiny, it adds wonderful flavor to foods and some important nutrients.

I write articles on whole foods living for a fun, quarterly magazine called Molly Green. We get the magazine in print and read it over breakfast. I love the kids to see me reading something tangible and not just reading on The Black Machine (insert Imperial Death March song). This quarter’s article is about different ways that dairy intolerant people may tolerate some dairy: A1 beta-casein versus A2 beta-casein, fat-rich sources versus protein-rich sources, milks from different animals, and fermentation. Click over if you’re interested…

look inside >
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EAT REAL. BUT EAT RIGHT FOR YOU!

Terri

Butyrate Series, Part 4

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Introduction:

We have had a most wonderful Thanksgiving week!  A warm thank you to my family for coming so far to visit and eat a gluten-free, dairy-free whole foods Thanksgiving dinner!  But let’s get this butyrate series rolling again.  Today’s post will start explaining dietary sources of butyrate after a few miscellaneous points.

1.  What does butyrate smell like?

Stravecchio Parmesan Cheese

A.  Chocolate
B.  Sauerkraut
C.  Stinky locker rooms
D.  Parmesan cheese
E.  A and C
F.  C and D
G.  All of the above
H.  None of the above

The smell of butyrate is quite characteristic.  I’ve heard it described as a vomit smell and a parmesan cheese smell.  Go figure.  My nose luckily errs on the side of parmesan cheese.  Today I opened a jar of ghee (ghee is clarified butter with the milk proteins removed and only the fat left behind) and a bottle of my butyric acid supplement capsules and had my sister smell them.  That distinct smell that greets you from a jar of ghee (or from butter if you have a good smeller) is butyric acid.  I wonder if I could sprinkle my supplement on my pizza meatballs… anyhow… butyric acid is what makes the locker room smell, stinky shoe smell, and certain cheesy smell.  So the correct answer is F (both C and D).

2.  How do you pronounce butyrate?

A.  Butt-eye-rate
B.  Byou-ter-ate
C.  Butt-er-rate
D.  Butt-yuh-rat

Butyrate:  byou-ter-ate
Butanoate:  byou-tan-oh-ate
Butyric acid:  byou-teer-ic acid
Butanoic acid:  byou-tuh-no-ic acid

The answer is B.

3.  Why do research articles use butyrate, butanoate, butyric acid, and butanoic acid interchangeably?

A.  Because they made mistakes in their writing and the editors missed it.
B.  All scientists, especially in nutrition, want to confuse everybody.  Like The Tower of Babel.  (Pssst.  Don’t let them do it.  Just eat real, whole foods.  Healthy food.)
C.  Because the terms apply to the same basic functional structure which the body can convert from one to the other with no difficulty at all.
D.  After lipase works on the short chain fatty acid butyrate, butyrate, butanoate, butyric acid, and butanoic acid are all made.  Although varying in structure, they do the same things in the body.

Butyrate, butanoate, butyric acid, and butanoic acid are interchangeable terms for our purposes.  In fact, butyrate and butanoate have exactly the same structure.  Butyric acid and butanoic acid have exactly the same structure.  And the only difference between butyrate/butanoate and butyric acid/butanoic acid is a hydrogen atom.  They all have the same structure plus or minus a hydrogen atom, and the body has no problems converting them back and forth.

The correct answer is C.

Back to Boring.  How Can You Get Butyrate?

There is no dietary guideline for butyrate, and you won’t see it mentioned on the nutrition label.   The best sources for butyrate come from eating certain foods that the bacteria living in your colon like to also eat (fiber and resistant starch).  However, this is not the only way.

I see 4 potential sources of butyrate for the body:

  • Eat butyrate containing foods
  • Eat butyrate producing foods
  • Take butyrate supplements
  • Take probiotics which contain bacteria known to make butyrate

Today we will look at “Eat butyrate containing foods.” 

What foods contain butyrate?

A.  Butter and cheddar cheese
B.  Bacon and ham
C.  Potato and sweet potato
D.  Beans and peas

There are not many food types with butyrate in them.  It pretty much comes down to food made from the milk fat of animals who eat grass, for example cows, sheep, and goats. These are called ruminant animals: animals who eat grass, have hooves, chew their cud, and have specialized stomachs.  The bacteria in their guts are very effective at making butyrate. (1, 2, 3)  So the correct answer was A.

Milk fat foods with butyrate:  Listed below are the butyrate contents for milk fat foods that I found on-line.

(Two asides:  1.  Here is a cool graphic “poster” glorifying the attributes of BUTTER:  Bulletproof–Grass-fed Butter in Bulletproof Coffee Review.  2.  If it is helpful at all as a useless reference, BodyBio makes a butyrate supplement.  BodyBio recommends a dose of 3600 mg daily of its butyrate supplement.  That may help you put the amounts I list below into some sort of perspective.)

  • 100 grams (one stick) of butter has 2700 mg
  • One pat of butter has about 216 mg (a pat of butter is 10 grams, 1/3 of an ounce, or 1/2 tablespoon) (3, 4, 5)
  • 100 grams (a little less than 1/2 cup) of cream has 1500 mg
  • 100  grams of whipping cream has 1200 mg  (I don’t know the difference between cream and whipping cream)
  • 100  grams (about 3.5 ounces) of cheddar cheese has about 1100 mg
  • 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of Camembert has about 780mg
  • 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of parmesan has about 730 mg
  • 100 grams of full fat ice cream has about 370 mg
  • 100 grams of “regular” milk has about 120 mg
  • 100 grams of whole milk yogurt has about 100 mg (5)

That’s it?

Well, that’s “pert near” about it.  Some fermented foods are claimed to have butyrate, but I couldn’t find Fermented foodsquantification of this, nor could I find any good list of sources from people who claimed this.  I spent hours searching, and I tried about a dozen or more different search terms.  I’ll list what I could find that showed/didn’t show butyrate in fermented foods.  If you have anything to offer in this area, please do!

Fermented Foods:

  • A study on commercial sauerkraut which showed no butyric acid in sauerkraut:  Chemical and Sensory Characterization of Commercial Sauerkraut. (6)
  • I found a rat study looking at the effect of fermented sugar beet fiber on cholesterol.  To make the rats’ food, they fermented sugar beet fiber with rat cecum bacterial contents in a fermentation jar.  The fermented “food” they made for the rats had higher levels of short chain fatty acids (including butyrate).  (Umm.  Is that how you make your sauerkraut?  Maybe we need to use their starter?  Makes you look at a Pickl-it-Jar in a whole new way…)  (7)
  • Kombucha.  I found a site called Happy Herbalist with a  post called “Analysis of the Kombucha Ferment.”  It lists butyrate (butanoic acid) as a potential substance in kombucha.  But I couldn’t determine the source of this information.  If you’re interested in kombucha, here’s a link to a research article about it.  Nothing about butyrate in it, though:  Changes in major componnets of tea fungus metabolites during prolonged fermentation.  In addition, I found something called “Teapedia.”  It also lists butyric acid as a potential component of kombucha:  Kombucha. 

So as far as fermented foods and butyrate go, I think there is probably a tad in some. Not much, if any, in the sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles I eat. If there’s a strong smell like parmesan cheese or stinky locker room, there’s probably a good chance there’s butyrate there. Trust your nose.

Final Thought

Does the presence of butyrate in what you eat even make a difference?  If you surf around regarding oral butyrate (either via food or via supplements), you’ll see concern about how butyrate does not make it to the colon.  It seems to be important to have butyrate actually physically in the colon. (8,9,10)  Many human studies on oral butyrate use an enteric coated formulation so it can make it all the way to the colon (11).  Two things cross my small mind here:

  1. Although most butyrate seems to be absorbed by the small intestine, the absorption of butyrate is “saturable,” meaning at some point the transport of butyrate will become overwhelmed, and butyrate can scoot on by to make it to the colon without being absorbed.  (12,13)
  2. It appears that the butyrate that is absorbed makes it to the blood for beneficial effects, even on the colon, and this seems beneficial to the body too.  From a study looking at short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and butyrate on mice with induced colitis: “It is now clear that the trophic [positive growth] effect of SCFA is due not only to the simple provision of energy to the host but also to the combination of local action and systemic metabolism of SCFA… We have demonstrated that this protection can be obtained by oral doses of SCFA.” (emphasis mine) (14)

Point one makes me think that if enough butyrate is taken through foods, there is a point at which absorption is overcome, and so some butyrate does actually make it to the colon.  Point two makes me think that even if it does get all absorbed, even that which is absorbed makes a difference both to the entire body and to the colon.

If you can’t eat dairy.  Don’t despair.  The next post will look at butyrate producing foods we can eat.

Take good care.

~Terri

Part 5

Sources:  (Most sources can be found in entirety or in significant portions on-line if you look for links to PDF files or look for little boxes that say “Full text.”)

  1. Milk Fats:  http://www.cyberlipid.org/glycer/glyc0073.htm
  2. Understanding the Ruminant Animal Digestive System from Mississippi State University Extension Service:  http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2503.pdf
  3. Foods High in Butyric Acid:  http://wholefoodcatalog.info/nutrient/butyric_acid/foods/high/
  4. The Ambiguity of a Pat of Butter:  http://www.ochef.com/1460.htm
  5. Butyric Acid Content of Food:  http://wholefoodcatalog.info/nutrient/butyric_acid/foods/
  6. Chemical and Sensory Characterization of Commercial Sauerkraut.  Trail, Young, Fleming, and McFeeters.  Journal of Food Quality.  1996.  19:  pp. 15-30.  http://www.ncsu.edu/foodscience/USDAARS/Acrobatpubs/P254-286/P258.pdf
  7. Fermentation Products of Sugar-Beet Fiber by Cecal Bacteria Lower Plasma Cholesterol Concentration in Rats.  Hara, Haga, Kasai, and Kiriyama.  The Journal of Nutrition.  April 1998.  128:4 (688-698).  http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/4/688.full
  8. Butyrate and the Colonocyte.  Velazquez, Lederer, and Rombeau.  Digestive Diseases and Sciences.  April 1996.  41: 4(727-739).  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02213129
  9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070119/  Potential effects of butyrate on intestinal and extraintestinal disease.
  10. Short-chain fatty acid formation at fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates. Henningsson, Bjorck, and Nyman.  Scandinavian Journal of Nutrition.  2001.  45: 165-168.
  11. Oral butyrate for mildly to moderately active Crohn’s disease.    Sabatino et al.  Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2005 Nov 1;22(9):789-94 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16225487
  12. Absorption of short chain fatty acids from the human ileum.  Schmitt, Konrad, et al. Digestive Diseases.  1977. 22:4 (340-347).  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01072192#page-1      STEFF, MEMS
  13. Absorption of short chain fatty acids from the human jejunum. Schmitt, Soergel, and Wood.   Gastroenterology.  February 1976.  70: 2 (211-215).  http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(76)70032-5/abstract
  14. Protection by Short-Chain Fatty Acids against 1-B-D-Arabinofuranosylcytosine-Induced      Intestinal Lesions in Germfree Mice.       Ramos, Bambirra, Nicoli, Cara, Vieira, and Alvarez-Leite.  Antimicrob Agents Chemother.  April 1999.  43:4(950-953).  http://aac.asm.org/content/43/4/950.full
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Part 2: A Success Story In Using the GAPS Diet to Stop Absence Seizures!

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If you subscribe to my posts or check-in regularly, you know I am following this unusual (poorly scientifically supported) diet called GAPS.  For me, it started out solely to fix my beyond slow, almost-to-stop, GI tract that NO medicine, activity, or dietary change was helping.  Over the year, on what I call my “dietary rehabilitation” program, I’ve seen lots of improvement in my GI situation, and I have observed (incredulously) the effect that foods, even “healthy” foods, has had on my family and me in many ways I never dreamed of.  These foods include dairy, wheat, eggs, chicken, and fruit:  “healthy foods.” Although I follow GAPS in a self-experiment, my blog is to encourage awareness that food treats the body like any drug, with good and bad effects varying in different people; most doctors don’t know or adhere to this.  I wouldn’t either, was I not living it.  Food culprits ought to be considered in many more illnesses.  I want to raise awareness that diet needs to be scrutinized and a dramatic change may help where no medicine or surgery does.  I am talking dramatic food changes, and some [most] people just aren’t willing to go there. Starting with a  traditional medical doctor is the correct place to start; I go to get new symptoms checked out, even for myself.  Bad problems exist, and I don’t want to miss them because I was blinded by nutrition or alternative health treatments.  My blog is not written to be a source of medical information, medical diagnosis or medical treatment, and I am no expert in nutrition or different types of diets, including GAPS.

Today, I am continuing to publish the Kinder Family’s story about how they feel nutritional intervention cured their son’s seizure disorder.  The story is unedited, despite the fact that I would have have perhaps explained things differently or sought help in different ways.  To me, the important thing is they recognized that food matters and they were willing to change.  Thank you, Dan and Tammy, for sharing:

Part 1 of “A Success Story in Using the GAPS Diet to Stop Absence Seizures!”

Part 2:  A Success Story in Using the GAPS Diet to Stop Absence Seizures!

by Dan and Tammy Kinder

…The ENT immediately recommended surgery and stated that he does dozens of sinus surgeries every month. Not wanting to go through surgery unless absolutely necessary, we started researching and reading alternative ways to resolve the chronic sinusitis. We came across lots of information that may potentially help. We read about changing our eating habit and avoiding certain type of food like dairy which causes the body to produce excessive mucus. We read about washing your sinus cavities out with salt water called a saline nasal flush. We read about many other things like supplements and other treatments, but these two made the most sense to us. So my husband stopped eating and drinking dairy products, he continued drinking carrot juice and started doing saline nasal rinse 3-4 times a day. He found out very quickly that the nasal rinsing worked was very effective. These rinses could turn a sinus infection that would normally last three or four week in to one that would last only three or four days. A sixty-nine cent can of salt was all it took to resolve the sinus infection each time symptoms appeared. Changing what we ate eventually gave his body the ability to prevent the infections from even appearing. As time went on the sinus infections disappeared altogether. This long drawn out experience with 13 different doctors contributed greatly to our decision to steer away from conventional doctors that would only give us their best guess and the best known drug at that time to try to resolve our son’s epilepsy, which leads me to my son’s story.

At about four and a half years of age, one of my sons started having what looked like staring or day dreaming episodes. When I first notice the episodes, my husband was convinced they were only day dreams and nothing serious. In fact, the episodes were so infrequent that he did not see one for himself until several months after they started. But as the months went by, the episodes came more and more frequently. They also became more pronounced in their characteristics and duration. The length of the episodes seemed to be mostly random, but would last anywhere from a fraction of a second up to as long as about eight seconds. The characteristics of our son’s body during the episodes also seemed to change as time passed. These characteristics included half-way drooping eye lids, the dropping of his arms to his side, looking towards the ground, staring at or through the person talking to him as though he was in his own world and ignoring his immediate environment. Along with these symptoms he also experienced reoccurring stomachaches. Early in this process we did not relate these stomachs to the episodes, but looking back over the years we now realize that his body was screaming for help yet we did not recognize or listen to what his body was trying to tell us. Another symptom was that certain foods would make him feel “weird.” Sometimes he would tell us that his head felt like it was spinning or vibrating. As he got older, it was certain foods he ate that made his head have these weird feeling or his body feel strange. Sometimes these odd feeling would cause him to want to do strange things. I recall one time that he told us that his body was telling him to scratch his fingernails on the concrete. That thought leads me to another symptom that was very strange. At times, he would tell us that his body was telling him to do things. On occasion he said he would hear voices telling him to do certain things. The older he got, the better he was able to elaborate on how he felt and and how he thought certain foods made him feel weird…

Part 3 to follow soon…

Dairy Causes Some Kids to Have Constipation

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It's the picture of Italian ice-cream in a sho...

It’s the picture of Italian ice-cream in a shop of Rome, Italy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tonight I found a site by Dr. John Briffa with a fairly recent post on cow’s milk and pediatric constipation:  Could dairy products be the cause of some children’s constipation?

I nearly wanted to explode “YES!” because I just can’t get this information out there loud enough!  Dairy causes constipation in (some) kids.  We saw this one year ago in my (then 6-year-old) daughter when we completely removed dairy several times and added it back in several times.  And what do you suppose happens to those constipated kids if dairy is never removed?  Well, maybe they turn into adults like me with severe, severe constipation.  I am not sure why (or if) dairy causes the initial constipation yet, but I do know that lifelong gut immotility has led me to have some issues with bloating, probably SIBO (small intestinal bowel overgrowth)–which makes sense because I was not getting the sweeping motion forward to keep the bacteria from creeping upwards.  I also have lots of food sensitivities (non-IgE) that I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t form through the years with the continued insult on the GI (gastrointestinal) tract.

It may be encouraging to know that my 7-year-old daughter was exceptionally sensitive to ALL dairy one year ago.   Even as a solely nursing infant, she would have longer than normal periods of no bowel movements, and I speculate it was due to my dairy intake.  She can now tolerate an occasional ice cream cone with no stalls in peristalsis.  We overhauled our diet in a big way, taking out “bads” and putting in “goods”, and maybe, just maybe, she can continue her dairy dalliances at times with exceptional nutrition otherwise.

The research article that Dr. Briffa was referring to was “The Role of Cow’s Milk Allergy in Pediatric Chronic Constipation: A Randomized Clinical Trial.”

For those who are following along regarding my GI progress, I am currently “taking my diet down” to I guess what would be considered Autoimmune Paleo, although I still adhere to GAPS.  I’ll let you know how it goes for my gut.  I’ve done it for four days now, and the last two days I’ve skipped my magnesium with success.  I believe any endeavor must have a goal.  By “taking my diet down,” I’m hoping to see improved bowel movements with either less magnesium or preferably none at all, less bloating, no irritable bowel symptoms, and no headaches.  I’m putting diet to the test.  We’ll see how much that honey, almond flour, egg, and fruit actually affect things here.

Other constipation related posts:

Slow and Steady Constipation Improvement (April 17, 2013)

Cow’s Milk and Refractory Constipation ((January 2, 2013)

A Doctor Visits the Doctor (December 5, 2012)

Whats’ Working (A Constipation Post) (November 3, 2012)

Is it Eggs (October 21, 2012)

Jordan and Steve (A Constipation Post) (October 17, 2012)

Bowels of Steel (October 8, 2012)

Cow’s Milk and Refractory Constipation

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Dripped homemade yogurt

Dripped homemade yogurt

Here below, I’ve listed some medical articles that I have read in the last six months regarding chronic constipation and dairy’s potential role in its causation.  No physician, in a professional relationship or friend relationship, ever mentioned to me or my husband that dairy could be causing my daughter’s chronic constipation that required daily Miralax for years.  I just don’t think they knew that constipation could be a nearly sole symptom of milk-intolerance.  I didn’t.  I do now, and so do they  (they’ve been texted, e-mailed, called, and “Christmas card updated”).

As dairy elimination did not take care of my issue with the same problem, I was relieved to find some journal articles on multiple food intolerances leading to chronic constipation.  I am doing this thing called the GAPS diet for my gut, I don’t know if it is working as a “whole regimen” or if going through the diet has allowed me to identify problematic foods.  Regardless, things are better for myself and my daughter, and I am glad I found these articles helping me to look beyond dairy as constipation triggers.  Laxatives were not working for me so well, and I was getting worried.

As I will and must say, it is ever important to make sure that there’s no serious disorder that needs to be evaluated–like cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, or another bad illness.  I’ve seen my doctors, and so must you make sure that nothing is being missed in your own body.  Also, I would like to point out that, although many of these articles are regarding children, my constipation started in early childhood–so I translated the studies to myself and adult studies seem to support this.

  • Chronic constipation and food intolerance: a model of proctitis causing constipation.Carroccio A, Scalici C, Maresi E, Di Prima L, Cavataio F, Noto D, Porcasi R, Averna MR, Iacono G.  Scand J Gastroenterol 2005 Jan; 40(1):33-42.
    A pediatric study finding cow’s milk intolerance manifesting as constipation in 24/52 patients.  Actual pathologic changes were found in the rectal mucosal biopsies of these affected patients, as well as decreased rectal mucus-gel layer.
    (Proctitis is basically the inflammation of the anus and lower rectum, resulting in clinical symptoms of cramping, feeling like you still have to have a bowel movement even after you’ve had one, painful defecation, anal irritation/itching, and pus or blood in bowel movement.  It can be caused by many things, but in this study, they found that dairy intolerant kids had it.)
  • Multiple food hypersensitivity as a cause of refractory chronic constipation in adults.  ANTONIO CARROCCIO, LIDIA DI PRIMA, GIUSEPPE IACONO, ADA M. FLORENA, FRANCESCO D’ARPA, CARMELO SCIUME` , ANGELO B. CEFALU`, DAVIDE NOTO & MAURIZIO R. AVERNA.  Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, 2006; 41: 498/504.   A very small sample of four women was found to have severe, refractory constipation alleviated by initiation of an oligo-antigenic diet (hypoallergenic diet–put simply, the women were put on a limited diet of foods that most people are not allergic to).  Elimination diet eventually allowed each patient to pinpoint multiple food intolerances causing their constipation.  Researchers also found pathologic changes in the rectum, duodenum, and esophagus of the patients as well.

  • Intolerance of Cow’s Milk and Chronic Constipation in Children  Giuseppe Iacono, M.D., Francesca Cavataio, M.D., Giuseppe Montalto, M.D., Ada Florena, M.D., Mario Tumminello, M.D., Maurizio Soresi, M.D., Alberto Notarbartolo, M.D., and Antonio Carroccio, M.D.  N Engl J Med 1998;  339:1100-1104October 15, 1998DOI:  10.1056/NEJM199810153391602.  One of the first larger studies to support milk causing childhood chronic constipation.  Also read the interesting editorials that both try to refute and support the findings.  I believe the first criticism may be concerned about the implications of removing a nutrition-packed food source from children’s diets, especially very young children.

  • Functional constipation in children: does maternal personality matter?  Alireza Farnam, Mandana Rafeey, Sara Farhang* and Saeedeh KhodjastejafariItalian.  Journal of Pediatrics.  2009, 35:25 doi:10.1186/1824-7288-35    As  my daughter quickly responded to dairy removal, I found this research article quite comical  (but I’m secretly relieved that dairy elimination and low nut intake keeps her regular!  Laugh!).

  • Constipation in children.  Nadeem A Afzal1*, Mark P Tighe2 and Mike A Thomson3  Italian Journal of Pediatrics 2011, 37:28 doi:10.1186/1824-7288-37-28.
    A review article in general about childhood constipation.  A brief blurb in there about cow-milk deserving a trial if there’s a family history of cow-milk intolerance, etc.  However, in our family, prior to May, we were completely unaware of “milk-intolerance” presence in our family, as I just did not know that sinusitis, chronic cough, and constipation could be related to dairy intolerance.

  • World Allergy Organization (WAO) Diagnosis and Rationale for Action against Cow’s Milk Allergy (DRACMA) Guidelines.  Alessandro Fiocchi, (Chair), Jan Brozek, Holger Schu¨nemann, (Chair), Sami L. Bahna, Andrea von Berg, Kirsten Beyer, Martin Bozzola, Julia Bradsher, Enrico Compalati, Motohiro Ebisawa, Maria Antonieta Guzman, Haiqi Li, Ralf G. Heine, Paul Keith, Gideon Lack, Massimo Landi, Alberto Martelli, Fabienne Rancé, Hugh Sampson, Airton Stein, Luigi Terracciano, and Stefan Vieths.  WAO Journal.  2010.  57-161.  A huge review article.  But buried in there are segments on constipation and dairy.  Also other good information.

If you’re reading this to help yourself or your child, best wishes to you on your endeavors, and I hope you find clues to better GI health soon!
Update:  I have come back through to edit this post a little.  Our constipation has improved significantly with the removal of all dairy products.  We even tried goat’s milk, but we failed the trial.  My daughter occasionally gets ice cream or a cake with some dairy in it at a birthday party or on vacation, and we have noticed that although she may skip a couple of days, her GI tract gets moving again without any Miralax.  Definitely an improvement!
Other constipation posts:

What GAPS/SCD has Helped (Despite What it Hasn’t)

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Waiting for Dr. “L”, our allergist, to come into the room.  He has great toys.

Here is a laundry list of things that GAPS/SCD has helped eliminate or improve for my family!  And please note, we were/are under the care of physicians for all of these things.  (Disclaimer:  You should make sure anything you’re treating has been checked out for the “BAD” stuff before you start treating yourself!  There can be really bad stuff lurking that needs to be ruled out before you embark on alternative routes of healing!  Please, please make sure you have been examined for any problems before you “mess around.”  And if something is really bothering you, don’t allow yourself to be dismissed!  You are your own best advocate!)

Seasonal Allergies:  Every single person in my household was on Flonase (a nasal steroid).  All five of us.  Two of my children even needed Singulair and Xyzal (an antihistamine) in addition to control their allergies.  That’s NINE prescriptions.

To heal up chronic constipation in myself and my middle child, we started playing around with gluten-free/dairy-free diets (trying to avoid “gluten replacement products”).   Finally, I decided to do GAPS for myself and brought the family along with me for the most part.  Our allergies cleared up.  All allergy medicines were able to be discontinued in myself and all of my daughters as soon as we went gluten-free/dairy-free, and they continue to improve!  My husband’s allergies improved (until we tried reintroducing dairy this month).  That is a huge improvement!  I am shocked, relieved, and excited!  I no longer have to worry about unwanted and unknown effects of the medicines on my girls.  We save lots of money, too!  And they feel healthy.  When ragweed season rolled around in August, my oldest took her Xyzal about twice.  That’s it.

At our allergy check-up last week, I sheepishly told the allergist what we were doing with regards to grain (GAPS/SCD diets are grain-free).  Dr. L said, “Yeah.  I see it all of the time.  People cut out wheat and their allergies get better…I don’t eat wheat anymore.”  Well, why didn’t he say so when we first came to him a year ago?  Why don’t other doctors know about this?  Why didn’t I know about this?  I probably would have just thought he was a “wacko” doctor  and found a different one.  We all come to terms with things when we’re ready to.  But our allergies are much, much better.  I can breathe through my nose now!

Keratoconjuctivitis sicca (dry eyes):  We moved half-way across the country about a year  and a half ago.  It was a busy, stressful time, and I had put off my annual eye exams with my optometrist–my sister.  My contacts had been bothering me, but nothing I couldn’t deal with.  My eyes were itchy and dry.  But I could deal with it.  It kept getting worse until it hurt to be in bright light, and I just couldn’t see too well.  Plus, it felt like there was something always in my left eye.  Finally, my sister took a look and told me I had an early ulcer in my left eye.  And I had keratoconjuctivitis sicca.  Dry eyes.  So I had to switch to wearing my glasses all of the time.  Hate that, especially in the summer heat.  When you’re meeting new people for the first time, and you don’t like your glasses.  Or you’re trying to exercise in them.  Yuck.   She gave me a steroid drop and told me to be rechecked by an ophthalmologist in our new town.

On recheck, the ulcer was healing fine.  The ophthalmologist gave me a prescription for Restasis (another terribly expensive medicine).  That’s it.  Didn’t have too much else to say about it.  I had some Patanol also.  The Restasis and Patanol helped control the dryness to a level that allowed me to  wear my contacts max about 6 hours a day, on a good day.  And it wasn’t really comfortable.  I’m about a 12 hour a day wearer.  I was so frustrated.  My other sister who is finishing optometry school was helping us move during this time, and she got so tired of listening to me whine about why in the world I have dry eyes.  “Terri, you just have dry eyes.  Deal with it.  It’s multifactorial.  Many things cause it.”

But why?  Why would a very healthy person get dry eyes?  I’ve never had eye troubles.  I shut my mouth.  I dealt with it.  Then, as our diet changed, my dry eyes got better!  Yes, I’m now a 12-hour a day wearer again.  I don’t even mean to be!  It just gets to be nine o’clock at night, and I haven’t noticed my contacts at all!  I forgot about them!  They don’t bother me!  Using GAPS diet, I was able to determine that if I eat too many nuts, my eyes will dry out a bit, and I can’t rub them because they’re so dry.  And it takes about 48-72 hours for that effect to set in.   It’s not the same day.  But it seems to be improving with the GAPS diet so I can eat a few more every time I retrial nuts every couple of weeks or so.  Egg whites may do it, too, but I’m still sorting that out.

I have told my sisters about this food stuff.  They never would have believed it.  But I guess I must not be too histrionic because they believe me.  Or maybe it’s still the oldest sister thing.  Well, one of them is moving toward eating grain-free.  And the other is shooting for mostly gluten-free.  And they even started saying to their patients, “You know…my sister changed her diet, and her eyes got better.  Go figure.”  Small steps.  At least now, because of me, there are two optometrists who will be out in the world knowing that nutrition may cause dry eyes in some patients!

Hormonal issues–night-time hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and vaginal itching (BV):  Ever since having my first child eight years ago, I had had unexplained hot flashes at night, vaginal dryness, and vaginal itching.  In fact, the symptoms started during my first pregnancy, and the vaginal itching was exceptionally bothersome–psychologically and physically!!!!  What was wrong with me?  I didn’t have any discharge, just itching.  But itching is a sign of STDs!  Paranoia set in!

My husband was peacefully sleeping one day after being on a rough night of orthopedic surgery residency-call, and I come storming into the darkened bedroom.  I stomp around and start yelling, “You gave me an STD.  I can’t even believe this…let me look at you.  Let me see.”  He sat up in a stupor, quite shocked and dumbfounded, wondering what he had done to get this attack from out of nowhere!  What had happened to his wife?  At the time, I had been doing a rotation at a pregnancy health clinic, and we routinely saw trichomonas, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.  I was thinking, “There’s no way no man is gonna’ dupe me!”  Under the influence of my “pregnancy-overreact-can’t think” hormones, I jumped to what I thought was the only potential cause of my vaginal issues.

Well, my obstetrician reluctantly tested me, never suspecting for a moment I had an STD.   He found bacterial vaginosis (BV), which is not an STD.  Even nuns have been found to have BV.  I was prescribed some metronidazole and told to eat yogurt daily.  I couldn’t stomach yogurt so I skipped that part.  Now I know that my BV was really just a complication of how imbalanced my gut flora was, and a good yogurt was probably a great recommendation.  However, the itching, hot flashes, and dryness persisted even after the birth of my daughter.  We had moved to a new state, and I complained to my new gynecologist about them.  We played around with my birth control pills before stopping them altogether.  My thyroid was checked.  A pelvic ultrasound was checked.  Everything looked fine.  So he gave me some estrogen vaginal cream to try.  Nothing really made a difference.  In the winter, I put a fan in my window to draw in the 20 degree air.  Or 10 degree air.  Or 0 degree air.  Visitors hated the cold nights at our house!  As I started probiotics, cutting out grains, and finally embarking on GAPS, my hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and vaginal itching have all went away.  Gone.  And good riddance.  I now shiver at night and wear warm socks to bed.  Sex doesn’t make me cringe because it hurts.  And I don’t wake up my husband accusing him of any affairs anymore.

Headaches and brain fog:  Aleve is a family friend.  Well, it used to be, but it’s not for me anymore!  Now, I just poo-poo my sisters when they ask, “Do you have any Aleve?”  Occasionally, I used to get what I called tension headaches.  Aleve always took care of them, and I never thought anything about it.    They got worse after the birth of my third child.  “Great!  This is what I can expect to feel like now that I’m a mother of three.”

At about the time I got a kidney stone and made my in-laws move in with us after my father-in-law’s triple bypass and aortic valve replacement, I started getting terrible headaches.  Awful.   I told Brandon I wouldn’t live that way, and I would try even “weird” things like acupuncture if  I needed to.   I saw my family doctor and an ENT (ears, nose, throat specialist).  I was treated for sinus infections.  Head CT was normal.  Brandon said he could just look at me and see how hard it was to think and how badly I felt.  Now I know that tanking up on donuts, cookies, and spaghetti was NOT a good thing for this problem!  Eventually the headaches calmed back down to baseline.

Looking back, I didn’t even realize how those minor headaches/brain fogs interrupted my life!  I can remember trying to homeschool my oldest, and to move my head to look at her work made me kind of “spinny.”  Not being able to think made me grouchy.  But it wasn’t all of the time.  I just loaded on the coffee and a few Aleve now and then.  I thought I felt good and was normal.  Going grain free really stopped these feelings of headache and fogginess.  Sometimes, they will come back depending on the time of the month, certain food triggers (egg whites and nuts), or being too low carb.  I think of all of the patients I saw in practice, and I wish I knew then what I know now.  How many tension headaches did I see?  Tons.  Maybe I could have helped them.

Acne:  My complexion has always been clear.  I like it that way.  But over the last year and a half, I started getting acne on my chin and on my butt!  Yuck!  Why in the world?  I thought maybe it was my Mirena IUD which has a little progesterone in it.  As I started a radical change in my diet, I saw huge improvements in my acne!  Namely, it disappeared!  Nooo00owww, I distinctly remember the dermatologist I trained with saying to his patients, “Nothing you eat has anything to do with this…here, try this Retin-A.”  As I’ve joined some on-line support groups for GAPS and SCD, I have read of numerous people dealing with acne through their diet and getting good results.  I couldn’t talk my 17 year-old sister into going gluten-free/dairy-free.  She wanted the cream.  I prescribed it for her.  She also gets tummy aches, headaches, and yeast infections.  She’s not ready for the conversion, but I planted a seed.  Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t catch on.  People think it’s too hard.  But if I can do it, anyone can do it.  I was a carboholic.  Genuinely.

Early nighttime fatigue:  I used to be a night owl.  Then, my candle started burning out early.  Like at 7 pm.  And I started needing about 10 hours of sleep.  WHO GETS THAT?!!!  My husband would try to talk to me in the evenings, and I’d just have to go to bed.  I was too tired.  Forget talk.  Forget anything!  Not kidding–this diet has helped that.  Even my husband agrees.  Seems silly, but I’m grateful!

Focus:  My eight year old has some mild focus, attention, and hyperactivity issues.  Very mild.  Almost not worth mentioning.  But when she has grains, her math fact pages take forever for her to complete.  And she talks and talks and talks and talks!  One time, she was bouncing off of the walls.  We had been to a party that afternoon.  I looked at her and I said, “Do you feel a bit hyper?”  She jumped up and down and nodded her head.  “Yes!  It must have been the food we ate!”

Constipation:  My six-year-old daughter’s constipation is tremendously better.  But it seems to have more to do with dairy than anything else–but ironically, she does great with the fresh milk I pick up, pasteurize, and turn into yogurt.  My constipation, well, it’s still struggling.

Chronic cough:  My husband has this form of cough-variant type asthma that he needed to use Flovent and albuterol for.  Better.  Except when reexposed to dairy.  Who prescribed that stuff without recommending that he trial off of dairy or nuts or eggs or something?  A good doctor who just doesn’t know.

Weight loss and food addiction:  My husband has lost about 20-30 pounds.  His joints don’t hurt so much.  I have lost 13 pounds.  But more than weight, I have lost the addiction I had to cakes, cookies, and breads.  A year ago I asked a woman and her daughter over for coffee and donuts or coffee cake to get to know them better.  She said, “We’d love to come over, but we don’t eat those things.”  I responded to her,  “Oh.  I LOVE refined white flour.  LOVE it.”  And I did love it.  I was lucky that my metabolism and activity level supported my intake.  I wanted that stuff like I imagine a narcotic addict needs narcotics.  Or an alcoholic needs alcohol.  In fact, on reflection, I believe the bulimia I experienced in my second year of pharmacy school was not due to my fear of being fat–it was due to my inability to control my eating in response to a huge life stressor.  I had to eat that stuff to make me feel better.  Because I was addicted.  Chemicals in wheat and dairy do stimulate the morphine-type receptors in the body.  So, I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to my old lifestyle.  One day at a time, though.  I promised myself a year on this diet plan.

In closing, I may have left out a few things.  But you get the idea.  You can see our change in eating habits has tremendously helped our family.  It’s really unarguable.  Some of it is truly objective.  My husband is a surgeon.  He is very fact based.  Evidence.  Give him evidence.

He knew I needed to do whatever I needed to do to try to solve my chronic constipation.  And he was game to try to fix Maggie’s (our middle daughter) constipation, too.  But when he saw how Maggie started pooping every day and how all of the girls’ noses cleared up without any medicines, he was on board.  I am glad he trusted me to make these dietary changes and supported me in them.  We continue to tweak our diet here and there.  I am strictly GAPS/SCD (their food content is similar).  My kids and husband are just mostly GAPS/SCD.

It all started with looking for a constipation cure for myself…finding an Italian study eliminating dairy in chronic constipation…seeing reports online about people getting better on gluten and dairy free diets…then moving onto GAPS/SCD.  And it has taken us to much better health.  Sure wish when I’d had those headaches a few years ago one of my doctor’s would have said, “Hmmm…try giving up wheat.”  Sure wish in residency we’d had some lectures on nutrition.  I wish I could go back and do medical school and residency over again knowing what I know now.  Well, as my mom said, “If wishes were dollars…”  Now I just wish all of this would help my GI tract MOVE.

Terri