To Drink or Not to Drink?

In today’s blog, I will be discussing the health effects I feel after drinking coffee.

Most of the time, when I drink coffee, I feel energized soon after. Although this energy is often short-lasting, it still gives me a much needed boost to get my day started. I like the strong effects that coffee has on me. It tastes excellent, but also awakens me, thus making me feel a lot better in general.

Image: Coffee Awakens The Force Within Me Mug

Without coffee, I feel extremely exhausted and drowsy throughout the day. Sometimes, I would even get cranky or start to develop horrible headaches. But aside from these effects, I would also like to talk about its effects on my digestive system. I know that you are most likely thinking that this is “too much information”, but trust me… I will not get too personal (or will I?).

Now this all started when I was in high school... when I first began to regularly drinking coffee. At this time of my life, I underwent many extremely bad stomach pains. Back then, I had no idea as to why I was getting these pains. At times, they got so bad that I could barely move. Many times, I would feel as though I would have to go to the hospital in order to cure the pain. Luckily, I was never hauled to the hospital, but I remember there being times when it came close.

Image: Belly Ache

After months of pain after pain, I finally made an appointment with my general doctor. At first, I thought that I had some sort of gluten problem (since almost every day, I would consume a gluten-product). But it wasn’t. My doctor told me that it was most likely due to lactose. I remember her saying that approximately 95% of Asians are lactose intolerant due to our genetics. It shocked me that I had this high of a chance in being lactose intolerant.

When she told me that I may be lactose intolerant, I did not want to believe her. I LOVED foods with lactose in them. For example, ice cream, milk, milkshakes, yogurt, and most of all... coffee! Now at first you may not think that coffee has lactose in it, but the way I make it, it sure does.

I love putting creamer in my coffee, especially that of vanilla or hazelnut. I also enjoy putting milk in my coffee. My coffee basically turns into coffee flavored milk at this point.

I went on a trial of a lactose-free diet for about two weeks. I was deprived of coffee, ice cream, milkshakes, and everything else that had some sort of dairy product in it. Even though it was extremely hard to follow a lactose-free diet, I did it. And sure enough, my stomach pains went away.

This is when I officially found out I was, in fact, lactose intolerant.

I thought that this was it for me - that I would have to stop drinking coffee once and for all, or I would have to start drinking black coffee. However, I hated black coffee (and I still do to this day).

So, instead of making the smart decision and avoiding coffee with creamer and milk product in it, I decided it was okay and the pain was worth it. I decided that I would continue drinking my coffee the way I wanted to. And ever since this moment, I think I have built a pretty substantial tolerance to the lactose products in my coffee. I now barely get stomach aches after drinking my coffee. Do I get a little gassy at times? Yes. But it’s tolerable. Trust me.

The overall moral of the story is that I will never stop loving and drinking the kind of coffee I want (the kind with creamer and milk in it, of course).

Image: Coffee With Creamer 

Side note: You may be wondering “why don’t you just take lactaid pills (pills that suppress the pain after consuming lactose products)?”. Well, to answer your question... I have already tried this approach. Yet, it did not stick through due to my constant forgetfulness and my hatred for the taste the pills came with.