Reintroduction Time

This week we began reintroducing lactose into Tommy's diet. Tommy's diet has been gluten free, lactose free, and very low sugar for the past year, simply because his intestines needed time to heal and those foods are hard to digest. We followed this diet plan because it worked very well for some friends who also adopted from Uganda and whose kids had problems similar to Tommy's. The diet helped a great deal, but it hasn't completely solved Tommy's issues. Things got so bad over this last trip to California that I told the doctor I wanted to move forward with testing for actual food allergies/intolerances.
In order to do that, we have to reintroduce both lactose and gluten. Right now Tommy is doing very well, so if he has a severe lactose intolerance we should be able to tell in the next few weeks. Lactose intolerance is not something we are particularly worried about because all humans have a lactose intolerance. If you don't believe me try this experiment: drink a gallon of milk in one sitting. The results will be ugly. This week we have started Tommy off with cheeses and yogurt, both of which are low in lactose. So far he is doing fine. This is a huge blessing, because if this continues it means I don't have to make his yogurt anymore. I probably still will when I have time, but I don't always have time. I am hoping milk goes over well, but I probably won't try giving him that until mid-next week when his carton of Lactaid runs out. At $4 a half-gallon he is going to finish it (yes, that's $8 a gallon- imagine what that will run us when he is a teenager). I would prefer not to find out!