Lactose

Ever since I was little I always really liked milk. I had a tall glass of milk with dinner every single night, when I got school lunch I always got the chocolate kind. It all began to shift for me when I began getting constant acid reflux starting around 2nd grade. I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder at the time, which centered around the intense fear of vomiting I developed after a stomach flu outbreak at my school. Whenever I had a glass of milk, my stomach felt strange, and I felt the bile rising up in my throat afterward. I would grab my neck and lay down, and the tears would start rolling down my face shortly afterward. I spent nearly everyday in the nurse's office after lunch, and I could tell the nurse was annoyed by it, and I knew my parents were too, but at the time I could not connect the dots about the lactose being the cause of everything. I even went to the doctor for the acid reflux, and they ran a number of tests, but that didn't fix anything. I eventually tried lactose free milk for the first time at a friend's house in 5th grade, and that was when I realized that it was the lactose that had been the source of my suffering for all those years. I have been avoiding lactose, and buying lactose free milk ever since.