Why I Gave Up Dairy

After noticing a rash on her 4-month-old son’s face that wasn’t going away, and in fact appeared to be getting worse, Laura decided to do a trial of eliminating dairy. In this episode, she shares the results of this (after only 8 days), as well as how she herself feels without this food group she’s eaten for her entire life.

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Transcript

You’re listening to the Love and Lettuce podcast with Laura Lima episode 39. This past week, I have eliminated a food group that has been with me all my life and I have to say I’m feeling pretty darn good. Let’s get into it.

Hey, this is Laura Lima, holistic nutritionist and founder of New mama nation, and host of the Love and Lettuce podcast. I am here to help mamas know what to eat to give them energy and help them feel fantastic. So they can better enjoy life with their littles. And remember, this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and does not replace medical advice from your health care provider, and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition. As always, please consult your health care provider to find out what is right for you. With that said, let’s get to the show.

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Ah, yeah, dairy.

I have to say it’s one of my favorite food groups. I just love butter, sour cream. Cream itself like whipping cream. Hello, making my own adding maple syrup. Yes, please give it all to me. Coconut whipped cream is just not the same to me anyways. Ice cream once in a while. Absolutely. That’s an indulgence for me. And cheese. I love cheese.

So to say that this has been an easy decision. Well, I have to say actually, it’s not an easy decision. And when I think about the food, but when I think about the reason why I’m doing it, it’s definitely easy. So here’s why I decided to give up dairy just over a week ago now, why I continue, and why I am planning to continue not having it at least for the most part.

Why I gave up dairy

I have been finding that then my almost five-month-old who is exclusively breastfed has had this rash under his chin and on his neck and a little bit on his chest. I feel I felt at first like okay, so it’s probably just because he drools a lot and it sits there as the drool sits there on his chin and on his skin. And you know, he’s got his pajamas on or whatever shirt is on. Maybe it’s rubbing against and it is irritated, whatever. I thought maybe it’s because of teething.

But here’s the thing. He’s had this rash for at least a month, I would say, and it was not getting any better. So I was like, Okay, I’ve got to look at my diet. Now I know that sometimes a mom’s diet does affect her breast milk, therefore affecting her baby via breast milk. But sometimes it doesn’t. So I was like, You know what, there’s a chance, it’s a small chance, but I just had this nagging feeling. It was nagging because I love dairy so much and I love cheese and all of that. I was like, You know what, I think if I avoid this for a while, even a week or two, that his rash will go away. Let’s just see what happens.

And so I did, I decided to give up all dairy, except I wasn’t being super strict. So if I ate something that might have had some milk solids in it, that was okay with me just for this experiment, but I really did want to try to avoid it completely beyond those little things. I wanted to see if this was truly the cause of Ben’s rash. Now I will say as a side note that I’m still having butter and that is definitely a cow milk product. However, it’s been okay, so I think it might be okay in the amount of milk protein that’s in butter. But if I do need to get off of it completely, I would switch to Ghee, which is clarified butter.

It doesn’t have any of the milk solids left in it. It’s just like the good fat part. So I will change to Ghee if I need to but I just haven’t done that switch yet. There you go. So fast forward eight days. His rash is pretty much gone. Yeah, I’m going to share it on Instagram just to show the picture of the before and after. I shared it today in my stories, but I will share it in a post as well so that you can scroll and have a look. Just for interest sake.

I mean, everybody is different. Every body is different, every baby is different. So it’s not to say that if your baby has a rash, and you eliminate dairy, this is going to be what happens to your baby – their rash will go away. Obviously not saying that. But it is saying, let’s look deeper. Let’s look at more than just you, maybe it is teething.

Okay, but now it’s been a month or maybe it is just from the drool. Okay, but it doesn’t truly that much anymore. Or, again, it’s been a month, what’s going on now? It’s kind of traveling up onto his cheeks, which is what it was doing. So that’s when I knew, okay, it’s not only not getting better, but in fact, it’s maintaining or even getting a bit worse, like it was kind of spreading up onto his cheeks and, come on, that can’t just be from drool. I mean, it could be yes, but in my case, I just didn’t think it was.

So I eliminated dairy

And eight days later, the rash is almost gone. Now it does seem to creep up here and there. So it’s only been like a week, right? But I’ve noticed over this past week that a couple of times, even though it was getting better. Two days out of the eight. It got worse again. So not as bad as it was originally. But it seemed irritated again. So this might not be just caused by dairy, or it might be but it’s still sensitive skin there. It’s still a rash that’s healing. So any kind of drool that sits there or rubbing against clothing could still affect it. But the original cause could still be the dairy products. We’ll see time will tell.

But I wanted to come on and tell you this because it’s just an interesting find. And I want to tell you how I’m doing with it. So personally, I actually feel so much better. So I don’t know, there are some foods that I feel that we are just drawn to that we’re actually sensitive to. It seems counterintuitive. It’s like why, body? Why do you insist on craving these types of foods that actually cause issues in my body that I would be better off leaving? I don’t know. But I have found, I have felt for a while that dairy might be an issue for me.

Symptoms

The main thing that I find, interestingly, as far as symptoms go is when I have a lot of dairy, which is most days. Because most days I would have had some kind of plain, grass fed, maybe grass fed but definitely plain full fat yogurt. Would have had that for sure. But once every other day, at least maybe once every three days, I would have had some raw cheese. And I do feel like raw dairy, by the way, is better tolerated. So I will add some of that back in.

For example, raw cheddar cheese. I will add that back in eventually and see how Ben reacts and see how I react. I also feel like goat dairy as opposed to cow dairy could be better tolerated as well, both by me and by Ben. So time will tell with that. But what I find the main symptom is with me when I have dairy is phlegm. I find that in the back of my throat, I feel not even just the back of my throat. I feel phlegm. So if I cough, it feels like there’s phlegm there. If I swallow. It feels like there’s phlegm there. And I have to say in the past week, I have not had that.

And here’s another interesting thing. My tonsils have always been big. My tonsils have always been on the bigger side. And I remember my naturopath when I first saw her and she was doing her initial consultation and initial evaluation of me. She said, Holy, these are big tonsils. So yeah, and when I was little I had strep throat all the time. It was just a thing. So I feel like my tonsils and my lymphatic system in general has always been a little bit slow, a little bit sluggish. And when you add something like cow dairy, that can be mucus forming or phlegm forming, that’s not good for the lymphatic system. It just gums it up further. It slows it down even further and it makes it more sluggish.

So I feel okay, I’ve had these lymphatic issues for my life, right, for most of my life. My body just tends to be more on the lymphatic issue side. And I’m feeding my body this food that isn’t helping that at all. It’s actually maybe contributing to more lymphatic sluggishness. So, duh, right, but sometimes It takes this outside source, this outside thing.

For example, Ben’s rash to tell me, Listen, let’s just do this. And let’s just try this and see how it goes. And I did it, and I’m feeling really good. I don’t feel those swollen glands anymore in my throat that were such a part of my life. They’re just so common and normal for me. And so I do think, yeah, they’re my normal.

But interestingly, those haven’t been as swollen this past week. And it’s only been a week. I’m like, let’s see what else is going to happen as I continue to avoid dairy for the most part. And I do hope that one day, I’ll be able to go back to it and not have these issues. But let’s face it, when it comes to the swollen glands, when it comes to phlegm and mucus forming foods for me, I just don’t think there’s going to be a time when I can go back.

So I’m hoping that yes, I’ll be able to have that homemade whipping green once in a while. And it won’t affect me ongoing. We’ll see how it goes. But yeah, that’s where I’m at. So I’m excited. I’m so excited that Ben’s rash is almost gone. Because when I think about something food related, and I’m like, You know what, let’s just experiment. This could be related to that. And it actually works. I’m like, wow. And again, there could be other factors. But listen, he’s had this rash for at least a month, and he’s only almost five months old. So, a lot of his life.

He has had this and now eight days later, it’s basically gone. That to me is exciting. It shows me, yes, you are listening to your intuition. You’re listening to what you believe might have been the issue. And it seems to be responding favorably positively. So I love that. And we’ll see how it goes. I’ll continue to monitor and see how his rash looks, and see how my symptoms are.

I’ve also lost five pounds. And I don’t know, I don’t know if this is related. I think it probably is. But I can think it was just this food that I was constantly putting into my body that my body was like, You know what, you don’t actually thrive with this food. And so now that you don’t have it anymore, less bloating, extra less, almost like less fluid in my body, less like bloating overall. It’s very interesting.

These are just my observations. By the way. These are just my anecdotal observations. But I feel like they have a lot of power. Because sometimes people are looking for the only answer like, well, if it’s not just this, then it’s not anything. But I feel that there’s so much gray area when it comes to nutrition and food and symptoms. And yeah, just because someone says, you know, I tried this, and it worked for me, maybe that will work for you, too. You don’t always have to look for the study that’s going to prove that 100% that is true. If that’s what you do.

For me anecdotal evidence, like what people tell me how they felt during this, you know, during this time when they eliminated that food like that, to me is so powerful, and so important. So that is my anecdotal evidence for you. Do with it what you will.

I would love to hear from you. If you feel like there’s a food that’s causing your baby issues. Or if maybe some of these symptoms that I’ve personally had my whole life, maybe those are caused by certain foods that I’m eating constantly that I thought was kind of healthy ish, or healthy. But maybe they’re actually causing me issues. Interesting, right? So I want to hear from you if that’s the case.

So what you can do is go to Instagram and send me a DM and I would be so happy to hear from you. I am @lauraannlima. I would love to hear from you there. So I will talk to you next week mama and have an amazing week. I will continue to have a dairy free fun filled time. Have a good week. Bye.

Thanks for listening to the Love and Lettuce podcast. To find out how to work with me and for more great info check out newmamanation.com. This is Laura. Until next time, love and lettuce.