Lactose Intolerance and treatments

[Violentvixen]

I have a weird variety of lactose Intolerance but take pills and am lucky that they work well for me. I'm especially lucky that the generic Safeway brand works well for me.

But there seems to have been a recent explosion of brands other than Lactaid or store generic brands. I'm curious if anyone here has lactose intolerance and has a go to?

Milky looks interesting, more about a low profile carrying of the pills. https://shopmilky.com

I'm specifically curious about Bactose, where it looks like you take it for a week then it lasts a month? https://bactose.com

 

[Olli]

I'm lactose intolerant, but quite mildly so. I might not even notice if I consume a small amount of lactose, but I do carry Lactrase pills just in case. Finland has always been a milk-drinking country; there are theories that drinking milk has been almost mandatory here given that humans generate so little vitamin D during short winter days and dairy is a good source of the vitamin. Given this history, there's a lower-than-average occurrence of lactose intolerance in Nordic people, but at the same time, the dairy industry has also had enough size and prevalence to develop dairy products suitable for lactose intolerants and even for completely lactose-free diets. Valio, which is a Finnish dairy company and one of the largest companies in the country (!), has long produced both, and their Eila brand ("Eila" is a first name, but also "Ei" means "no") contains completely lactose-free milk, buttermilk etc., and they are (at least to me) completely indistinguishable from their lactose-containing counterparts. Most local store brands also contain at least a low-lactose option.

 

[Violentvixen]

there are theories that drinking milk has been almost mandatory here given that humans generate so little vitamin D during short winter days and dairy is a good source of the vitamin.

That makes a lot of sense, interesting!

completely lactose-free milk, buttermilk

Oh dang I don't think I've ever seen lactose free buttermilk (that isn't plant-based) interesting! Lactaid has always been the brand in the US and is definitely in grocery stores frequently but you basically never see it as an option outside of that. The various nut milks have recently started to show up in coffee places, but the lactose free ones are incredibly rare or basically just not at hotels/buffets/coffee shops, etc.

I'm specifically curious about Bactose, where it looks like you take it for a week then it lasts a month? https://bactose.com

They had a sale not long after I made this post so I started it and am happy to say it seems to be working! I was near the end of month two after Thanksgiving and was able to have ice cream with dessert, creme brulee, whipped cream on hot chocolate, etc at various points over the long weekend with no issues. This is WILD.

Also interesting was within the first two weeks of taking it my gut just felt better in general? Pants that haven't fit in a while suddenly fit without my weight changing so I guess I had some bloating I hadn't even noticed. Huh. Anyway, I hope this continues working. It's not cheap ($30/month) but will be great for the holidays when there's surprise dairy everywhere. I'll probably keep it up as the work meeting lunches with unexpected dairy were getting really frequent and frustrating.