"Exactly how certain are you that it's the lactose?"

99.9% certain.

For years, even though I had gotten rid of my excess weight (OK, OK, I
confess...45 down, another 10 pounds to go!), I often looked like I was
about to give birth. Nothing helped - not diet, not exercise.

One day my best friend, who is a nurse, told me a woman came into the ER
and looked like she was about to go into labor any second, as her
stomach was so big. When the lady told her she wasn't pregnant, my
friend suspected a tumor or something, and wanted to have the woman
checked. (She came in for something entirely unrelated.) The lady
laughed and said, "No, I had a grilled chesse sandwich for lunch....my
stomach will be like this for a day or two, because I'm lactose
intolerant!"

So, my friend suggested that I cut out dairly products for a week or two
- not easy, since my favorite food is pizza! But, I did....eliminating
dairy was the only thing in my diet that I changed, and at the end of
that time my stomach was as flat as it's ever been.

Couple of weeks later, I met a blind date at Starbuck's. I was careful
to specify "NO whipped cream" on whatever (milk free) drink I ordered,
but they put it on anyway. I didn't want to make a fuss - this was a
man I had never met before - so I popped a couple of lactase tablets,
figuring a tablespoon or two of cream couldn't hurt. I won't go into
detail....
suffice it to say, I had arranged to be at my friend's house at a
certain time (my "out" so I wouldn't be stuck if I didn't like the guy),
and barely made it!

Since then, I've tried other "experiments." Like, I had the idea maybe
ordinary skim milk would be OK on cereal. Nope. The "results" are
within an hour or two of consuming milk products, so it's pretty
certain. (