Hello All

This is Meg and I have a jpouch since August 2008 . I have struggled with pouchitis on and off during this time . After the surgery to reduce the frequency and gas I started using lactose free milk even though I was never diagnosed with lactose intolerence per say . So since August 2008 I only used lactose free milk with cereals , or tea or milkshakes etc 

But I never knew at that time that milk is in many other products like baked goods or fillers in lots of medicines or other processed foods so I kept on eating them and every once in a while when Lactose free milk was unavailable I would drink normal milk and did just fine .

But , since last year or so I slowly started having problem digesting few things like cottage cheese or ricotta cheese and few milk products . So I started avoiding those . Then I wanted to go organic so switched to organic valley lactose free milk .

After switching the milk brand within 3-4 months I started having severe symptoms of lactose intolerence .

Now it is to a point that I cant even digest one spoon of normal milk . I cant eat anything which has milk products in it because if I do I have lot of bloating , gas , bubbly diarrhea and cramping .... Almost like my body s getting rid of something nasty . It takes a while like coupke of weeks for my pouch to settle down . I am feeling very sad and frustated since I never had this issue and could eat any processed food with milk products in it . Did I make a mistake switching to lactaid after surgery ?

is there any way to solve this issue without using lactaid pills ? I usually dont do good with pills and always suffer from side effects more . Can my lactose intolerance be temporary ? How come it was aggravated suddenly ? One day suddenly I started having issues out of no where . Yes I did swtich to lactaid when maybe it was not necessary but I was having milk products in other forms so my body wasnt completely deprived of lactase so why this is happening suddenly ?

is there any way to reverse this naturally and could it be temporary ? Did anyone have lactose intolerence for sometime and it went away or self correct itself over time . It would be really difficult to deal with this since I end up travelling a lot and when I have diarrhea I get dehydrated very fast to a point of fainting and need fluids thru IV  . So its scary especially if I am travelling to a foreign country . Yes I cant take non dairy creames and take be careful to avoid the symptoms but since it very new thing its hard to adjust to the change and very frustrating . Also its not always possible to avoid food with milk in it and sometimes when I go to a friends place or restaurant I am not aware of presence of milk till I get symptoms .

please share your experience of lactose intolerence managment and any remedies or cures or insights 

I have been dealing with so much health issues since last decade UC , avascular necrosis (long term steroid use ) of right hip,both knees ,ankle ,wrist been thru hip replacemnt and knee replacement and have future surgeries waiting for me when avn progress more in the affected joints 

plus migranes ,psoriasis , hidradenitis suppurativa , chonic hives I am emotionally and physically exhausted already so cannot handle anymore issues now �� 

thank you all for listening and reading thru a long post