A Bug's Life

actual scientific name or diagnosis

Excuse me while I laugh, hollowly!

My symptoms were pain mainly in the sacroiliac region. Not a sharp pain like something's wrong, nor the ache you get from overusing muscles. An ache which never went away. My back would often make clunk noises when I lay down, after which it would feel a little freer-moving. It would "go out" very easily, when I sneezed, or bent to tie my shoelaces. It felt very fragile, not strong; I did not have the strength to pull open a fire door or to walk in the wind.

X-rays and MRI scan showed a bit of wear in one disc, but that's it. Nothing else mechanical. No slipped discs. "Unstable joints" was the best diagnosis I got. Osteopathy and chiropracty helped, but my back would "go" again once I'd sat in the cab home for 10 minutes. Pilates helped to some extent with gaining strength.

My current assumption is that the dairy causes some rheumatic-type reaction, some irritation or inflamation, hence the joint pain. Now my back is no longer acute, I notice the symptoms in all joints (wrists, toe-knuckles, shoulder blades). What really struck me with this recent experiment was that the pain was not great, but something was going on in the lower back joints which made me hobble. But what??? Some things just stopped being prepared to work together smoothly.

It really irks me that I don't have a clear biochemical pathway to explain this, but empirical evidence has shown me that it does happen. And the benefits to me are substantial enough to continue with it despite the denial of the Joy of Cheese. My doctor, when I mentioned how much better I was after a month of no dairy and five years of crippling pain, looked at me as if to say "Oh dear, she's turned into a nutter, but if it means she bothers me less I'll not challenge her lunatic notions". And that was the last I heard :-) I have had no medical tests for dairy intolerance (and a recent post decribes my non-symptom-match with either lactose intolerance or milk allergy).

NB: Dairy exclusion does not work for all back problems - notably a friend who saw my improvement, thought she'd try it herself, and got worse - her doctor eventually diagnosed a calcium deficiency...

I've taken the friends lock off this post if you want to point the person over here.

I lived on dairy! Pizza, korma, cottage cheese, yoghurt, Philadelphia cheese spread, cereal, Bailey's Irish Cream, - and chocolate! How could I forget Cadbury's Dairy milk? :-(

I noticed an improvement after a month clear of dairy - and more improvement a month after that, and it has continued. I keep thinking I've plateaued, but when I look back on my condition of a year ago I can still see improvements. I've been doing this since August 2000, and this is my first proper experiment into how much I can tolerate.

I could do without dairy a lot easier if it didn't inveigle its way into so many off-the-shelf foods. Checking labels is a bind, as is asking for sandwiches to be made without butter and vegetables to be served without butter and finding someone in a restaurant who knows what they're talking about when they tell you what's in something.