Lactose intolerance after bariatric surgery is just a fact of life for many of us. Why does this happen, and what can we, as gastric bypass patients, do about it?
Why Gastric Bypass Patients Get Lactose Intolerance
Your body uses digestive enzymes called lactase to digest lactose, the sugar found in dairy products. In most stomachs, milk waits around to be slowly released into the intestine. The body processes a little bit of lactose at one time instead of all at once. It only needs a little bit of lactase at any given time.
After gastric bypass surgery, however, milk goes through the stomach much more quickly. Even if your body was perfectly okay with dairy products before your weight loss surgery, your intestine might be getting more dairy than it’s used to. This effectively overwhelms the lactase and gifts you with those unpleasant symptoms like acid reflux, bloating, and worse.
What You Can Do After Gastric Bypass Surgery
If your lactose intolerance appeared after bariatric surgery instead of before, you can still have dairy if you do it right. Eat smaller quantities, more slowly. Have just a bit of milk with your meal—better yet, try some rice milk or soy milk. Yogurt may digest slowly enough to treat your body right, but only if you acquired lactose intolerance after bariatric surgery.
Don’t Forget Your Calcium!
Just because you can’t have large quantities of dairy all at once doesn’t mean that you should slack on your calcium intake. Calcium does more than just give you strong bones. It helps you absorb important nutrients like Vitamin C, helps regulate nerve, muscle, and blood vessel function, and even helps regulate your blood pressure.
If you can’t take much milk in your system, a calcium supplement is one of the best ways to go. We prefer a calcium supplement made for gastric bypass patients.
