Note: All comments about the raw milk and experiment and migraines are appreciated. And they amounted to much better than I got from physicians chat groups (though I was offered prescriptions).
I received dozens of emails and do not plan to respond to them, though many have been educational and helpful and the reading will take some time.
Years of occassional hot cocoa consumptionat the rate of 5-20 cups per Winter, consistently, allows me to rule that variable out. And that pleaseth me.
Raw milk has probiotics which could kill off some infection in the gut producing a herx reaction. After the reaction resolves, if you notice improvements in your health, that is the indication. Otherwise not.
That would be my explanation as well. Symptoms of detox, healing crisis. I drank raw milk for years when recovering from a chronic condition. It was recommended by my functional medicine doctor who drinks it herself. I should go back to it but it is definitely less convenient than (tasty but dead) supermarket milk
I'm not a raw milk expert, but I've never heard of a Herxheimer reaction from raw milk "detoxing" your body, it's usually something people experience when using chlorine dioxide, or "MMS".
Rule: Gradually introduce any new food or medicine. I.e. don't eat a ton of fiber or you will feel bad bloat too. Also fermentation allows for better digestion
Plain yogurt/kefir. My hubby grew up with raw milk and buys it too, I lost my taste for milk years ago but I still enjoy lots of ⁴butter and cream. Grassfed products offers the best nutrients,like K2, for ones body. best to you on your journey.
Kefir is a LIFE SAVER for me, even the humble water kefir and also the milk kefir made from "Government Authorized" milk.
I think I have permanent gut damage for many years of SSRI's. You know, turns out that serotonin is mostly a gut substance, not a brain chemical substance, so targeting serotonin for depression is as misguided as targeting cholesterol to prevent plaque build-up.)
Kefir and coconut oil did wonders for me when I stopped all psychiatric medication years ago.
Lately I've been experimenting with chlorella. I figured that it is comparable to eating kefir grains, but chlorella is said to have "healing" properties very different from kefir. There is a lot to be said about accidental, continuous "poisioning" and these microbes that seem to neutralize almost everything, even substances that have been stored in some part of the human body for decades, waiting in line to be processed.
I wish I would have had access to chlorella years ago. And who knows, maybe if everybody had their own kefir, then there would be no more antidepressants or anxiolytic pills produced anywhere in the world. It's a staggering though: what if most "mental disorders" are just nutritional deficiencies caused by a damaged gut microbiome?
I often remember Knut Wittkowski and his cyclo-dextrines that no one wanted. It was worth a shot. Censorship kills!
I am on a super strict carnivore diet for autoimmune disorders and anxiety (I cured myself and so have thousands of others). In our community it is vital that you get A2/A2 milk.
People who are allergic to milk, can drink A2/A2. And there is no community dialed into foods like the autoimmune / carnivore community. Please, try again.
If you are reading this and have MS, anxiety, depression, RA, UC, Psoriasis, or any of the other autoimmune disorders - try this. I can show receipts.
Looks like a few other people mentioned this too, but I wanted to also chime in that sometimes dairy intolerances go away with raw grassfed A2 milk. The A2 part is much less known than the rest.
I grew up on a farm in the midwest. We had milk cows and as a baby my mother fed me cows milk that she pasteurized. I joke about having a cow brain because of my difficulty with mathematics. I breastfed my three sons so they would have the intelligence that they would need to be healthy and successful as possible. It still remains to be seen if that is true, but so far so good.
Try kefir. It is fermented (like yogurt). I've been consuming raw dairy for more than 20 years (we have the largest raw milk dairy in the U.S. in my county). I wouldn't think butter should give you a problem. The fat from ruminants is the healthiest of all, and seed oils are the most unhealthy. Or you might try goat (the yummiest kefir to my taste). I no longer consume unfermented dairy, so for me, it is kefir, cultured butter, and cheese, all raw.
Never heard of migraines after raw milk but who knows, maybe some allergy for you? I could never drink pasteurized without intolerance problems but have been great with raw. I drink about a half gallon a day. Another consideration you may want to look in to... is the raw milk A1 or A2 or a mix? Only A2A2 doesn't bother my gut so maybe something to try.
The big question is: Was the raw milk A1/A1 Casein proteins? Or A2/A2
I am on a super strict carnivore diet for autoimmune disorders and anxiety (I cured myself and so have thousands of others). In our community it is vital that you get A2/A2 milk.
People who are allergic to milk, can drink A2/A2. And there is no community dialed into foods like the autoimmune / carnivore community. Please, try again.
If you are reading this and have MS, anxiety, depression, RA, UC, Psoriasis, or any of the other autoimmune disorders - try this. I can show receipts.
Oh, that painting! It's gorgeous! The lion with his head in Daniel's lap. It gives me chills.
Sorry to hear about the migraines. I used to have them All. The. Time. What a terrible time it was! Then I quit my job. Poof! In the last 5.5 years I've had, maybe, 2 mild ones. I hope David AuBuchon is right and it's your body healing itself with the help of the milk. I'd like to be able to try raw milk. I don't know of anyone in our area selling it, though. I hope the next batch is not so hard on your head.
I had 4-5 migraines a week in my mid-late 20s, then cut out most milk, took a bit of lactase, and also diet sodas. Poof, problem solved. It just takes finding the variables.
My diet has been organic since the 1970s and all my kiddies raised on pure food so reactions are pretty certainly to nature's ingredients. My daughter is fairly lactose intolerant and she did not do any better with raw milk, but yogurt or goat milk is well tolerated so you might try that as a raw milk compromise.
I had the same kind of reaction related to work. In one case, it was the diet sodas I was drinking. And another case it was the granola bars with GMO ingredients. In both cases when I left the environment, poof, headaches gone. People get a lot more headaches from processed food then they even realize. Took me several years but I finally get it. As long as I eat things with few ingredients, I’m good.
You might try A2A2 raw milk. Far superior to “normal” raw milk. The A2 cows has an extra protein that predigests the milk so that even “lactose intolerant” people can drink it. I have 2 A2A2 Jersey cows and our milk is exceptional according to people who have tried it.
Could it be the extra hot cocoa that triggered your migraines and not the raw milk itself? Chocolate is a migraine trigger for me. Try avoiding cocoa during your third try and see if that makes a difference.
If you're using raw milk to make cocoa, I'd have thought the heating of it essentially turns it into pasteurized milk. So any reaction to (overconsumption of) the cocoa wouldn't be a reaction to raw milk.
You could sour the milk, separate the curds and whey and see if you get any reaction to the curd cheese.
I've always tolerated pasteurized butter very well. Recently, I was eating a lot of raw cheese and pasteurized butter and tolerating the combination well. I then switched to raw, cultured butter. The combination of raw butter and raw cheese resulted in really heavy phlegm. Not sure whether it was the change to raw butter that did it or just that I'd overloaded myself on dairy! Anyway, stopped eating cheese and butter for a couple of weeks and phlegm all gone. Funny old world!
Regarding the milk, talk to Trent! There is A1 and A2 milk from different breeds & he has some research on A2 being the kind of milk that is less allergy related. He has talked about it with me, but I cant remember the specific details.
For some people, it can be the milk protein (casein) not the lactose that causes digestive issues. To avoid that possibility, look for A2/A2 raw milk. A2/A2 protein is tolerated more easily than A2/A1 milk and is becoming more widely available.
You've mentioned being knocked out of commission by migraines on at least one other occasions. I am very sorry that you have suffered from this sometimes debilitating condition.
Rather than pinning down the cause directly it might be helpful to rule out some causes. That would include "leaky gut" (intestinal hyperpermeability) where food crosses into lymphatic system or bloodstream and triggers an autoimmune reaction. The initial trigger isn't an allergy to the food itself but what is happening to that food. My spouse gets now migraines when she eats certain foods that she historically did not react to (eggs and tree nuts).
And it could be related to the specific combination of foods consumed. Consumption of fat AND highly refined carbs at the same time has been suggested to increase "leaky gut" as distinguished from consuming a predominantly fatty or high carbohydrate meal.
In my mid-late 20s I had 4-5 migraines per week, so I experimented until I found the culprits---primarily dairy. I took lactase for a few years, but eventually didn't need it so long as I did not over-consume milk and cheese. Since then, the migraines became pretty rare---maybe one every six months or so. If I had a condition like leaky gut, perhaps I removed inflammatory dairy enough to heal.
I'd still like to find out if there is the possibility of shifting toward raw milk. I'm going to read up on topics mentioned (caseins) and see what more I can learn. Since I have few other health problems or allergies, it is perhaps possible to "solve it" all.
I too am mildly lactose intolerant. I in have no issues with raw milk and have consuming it for years. Try starting out with smaller amounts. I buy a gallon and then split it up into pint jars and freeze them. I take one out when needed. It freezes perfectly and there is no difference in taste when defrosted. If this doesn’t work try drinking A2 milk. That gives me no issues at all even if I consume more than usual.
It's illegal here now but at one time I'd gone to a raw milk introduction at a local alternative health club and there was a farmer presenting the benefits of raw milk. One lady took one of the samples, as many of us did, but at some point she began sobbing. The presenter asked her if she was ok and she said she was so overjoyed at the idea of being able to eat ice cream again that it made her cry. She had been in the hospital, contracted that flesh eating virus, and had so many antibiotics that she became lactose intolerant.
Besides lactose intolerance, many are are intolerant of the "bad" forms of beta casein. If your farmer has NOT made sure all his milking cows have A2A2 beta casein genetics, then his farm's milk will be contain some of the problematic beta casein variants. (A1 being the most common of these.) These non-A2 variants cause many problems among milk drinkers who have imperfect gut linings.
When I lived on farm-fresh milk and maintained my grass-fed micro-dairy farm, our herd was all A2A2. I was shocked that many of my fellow dairy farmers, such as Mark McAffee, refused to prioritize getting the bad beta casein genetics out of their herds (& milk). Preferring to believe that the "magic" of "raw" (we should say "farm fresh") solves everything. It does not. People with leaky guts end up with beta-caseomorphins leaking into their bloodstream when the milk contains non-A2 beta casein. The only way to fix this is to insist on cows that are A2A2.
It's hard to get a man to see something when his paycheck depends upon him not seeing it. For a dairy farmer to face the A1/A2 issue, he has to be willing to admit that his milk is harming a significant fraction of those consuming it, and admit that he needs to get rid of a large percentage of his cows. Instead of facing this, most farmers go into denial. In my experience.
(Edited at add missing NOT above, 12:06 PM EST 12/16)
Note: All comments about the raw milk and experiment and migraines are appreciated. And they amounted to much better than I got from physicians chat groups (though I was offered prescriptions).
I received dozens of emails and do not plan to respond to them, though many have been educational and helpful and the reading will take some time.
Cocoa from quality hot chocolate is more likely a migraine trigger than the milk. I can't have cocoa before bed or I wake up with a migraine.
Years of occassional hot cocoa consumptionat the rate of 5-20 cups per Winter, consistently, allows me to rule that variable out. And that pleaseth me.
Raw milk has probiotics which could kill off some infection in the gut producing a herx reaction. After the reaction resolves, if you notice improvements in your health, that is the indication. Otherwise not.
I'd not heard of a herx reaction. Will read up. Thanks.
That would be my explanation as well. Symptoms of detox, healing crisis. I drank raw milk for years when recovering from a chronic condition. It was recommended by my functional medicine doctor who drinks it herself. I should go back to it but it is definitely less convenient than (tasty but dead) supermarket milk
Jarisch Herxheimer
I'm not a raw milk expert, but I've never heard of a Herxheimer reaction from raw milk "detoxing" your body, it's usually something people experience when using chlorine dioxide, or "MMS".
In lieu of duplicating what I've already posted- https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/a-raw-milk-experiment-and-a-podcastvideo/comment/11235671
Rule: Gradually introduce any new food or medicine. I.e. don't eat a ton of fiber or you will feel bad bloat too. Also fermentation allows for better digestion
Plain yogurt/kefir. My hubby grew up with raw milk and buys it too, I lost my taste for milk years ago but I still enjoy lots of ⁴butter and cream. Grassfed products offers the best nutrients,like K2, for ones body. best to you on your journey.
Kefir is a LIFE SAVER for me, even the humble water kefir and also the milk kefir made from "Government Authorized" milk.
I think I have permanent gut damage for many years of SSRI's. You know, turns out that serotonin is mostly a gut substance, not a brain chemical substance, so targeting serotonin for depression is as misguided as targeting cholesterol to prevent plaque build-up.)
Kefir and coconut oil did wonders for me when I stopped all psychiatric medication years ago.
Lately I've been experimenting with chlorella. I figured that it is comparable to eating kefir grains, but chlorella is said to have "healing" properties very different from kefir. There is a lot to be said about accidental, continuous "poisioning" and these microbes that seem to neutralize almost everything, even substances that have been stored in some part of the human body for decades, waiting in line to be processed.
I wish I would have had access to chlorella years ago. And who knows, maybe if everybody had their own kefir, then there would be no more antidepressants or anxiolytic pills produced anywhere in the world. It's a staggering though: what if most "mental disorders" are just nutritional deficiencies caused by a damaged gut microbiome?
I often remember Knut Wittkowski and his cyclo-dextrines that no one wanted. It was worth a shot. Censorship kills!
Was the raw milk A1/A1 Casein proteins? Or A2/A2
I am on a super strict carnivore diet for autoimmune disorders and anxiety (I cured myself and so have thousands of others). In our community it is vital that you get A2/A2 milk.
People who are allergic to milk, can drink A2/A2. And there is no community dialed into foods like the autoimmune / carnivore community. Please, try again.
If you are reading this and have MS, anxiety, depression, RA, UC, Psoriasis, or any of the other autoimmune disorders - try this. I can show receipts.
Here: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/does-carnivore-diet-really-work-for
Looks like a few other people mentioned this too, but I wanted to also chime in that sometimes dairy intolerances go away with raw grassfed A2 milk. The A2 part is much less known than the rest.
I grew up on a farm in the midwest. We had milk cows and as a baby my mother fed me cows milk that she pasteurized. I joke about having a cow brain because of my difficulty with mathematics. I breastfed my three sons so they would have the intelligence that they would need to be healthy and successful as possible. It still remains to be seen if that is true, but so far so good.
You are absolutely right.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-critical-differences-between-a1-and-a2-milk_4603374.html?utm_source=healthnoe&utm_campaign=health-2022-07-31-2&utm_medium=email&est=ck6rVnCi02e7boIaKqoE38XDGcUivthexAJEp6i3LcmB%2BJFiV83fwHgNR3Y%3D
Be curious if they were Jersey , Holsteins or another cow.
Jersey milk is creamy and more digestible … and I think easier to find A2
Unfortunately both of my parents have passed so I can only guess what breed we had back in the day.
Jerseys tend to be shorter and brown…also calmer/less skittish than Holsteins (typical Black and White cows)
Looking very forward to Suddenly Dude... Dude where's my ethics?
World Premier of Dude Suddenly
Details: Saturday, December 17, 2022
Noon Eastern
All video platforms where RTE can be found
This historic event will yield over ten million views in the first week along, or some fraction thereof. It has been thoroughly fact-checked.
https://roundingtheearth.locals.com/post/3217128/world-premeir-of-dude-suddenly
Try kefir. It is fermented (like yogurt). I've been consuming raw dairy for more than 20 years (we have the largest raw milk dairy in the U.S. in my county). I wouldn't think butter should give you a problem. The fat from ruminants is the healthiest of all, and seed oils are the most unhealthy. Or you might try goat (the yummiest kefir to my taste). I no longer consume unfermented dairy, so for me, it is kefir, cultured butter, and cheese, all raw.
X2. Kefir is excellent
Never heard of migraines after raw milk but who knows, maybe some allergy for you? I could never drink pasteurized without intolerance problems but have been great with raw. I drink about a half gallon a day. Another consideration you may want to look in to... is the raw milk A1 or A2 or a mix? Only A2A2 doesn't bother my gut so maybe something to try.
Exactly!!!!
The big question is: Was the raw milk A1/A1 Casein proteins? Or A2/A2
I am on a super strict carnivore diet for autoimmune disorders and anxiety (I cured myself and so have thousands of others). In our community it is vital that you get A2/A2 milk.
People who are allergic to milk, can drink A2/A2. And there is no community dialed into foods like the autoimmune / carnivore community. Please, try again.
If you are reading this and have MS, anxiety, depression, RA, UC, Psoriasis, or any of the other autoimmune disorders - try this. I can show receipts.
Here: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/does-carnivore-diet-really-work-for
Oh, that painting! It's gorgeous! The lion with his head in Daniel's lap. It gives me chills.
Sorry to hear about the migraines. I used to have them All. The. Time. What a terrible time it was! Then I quit my job. Poof! In the last 5.5 years I've had, maybe, 2 mild ones. I hope David AuBuchon is right and it's your body healing itself with the help of the milk. I'd like to be able to try raw milk. I don't know of anyone in our area selling it, though. I hope the next batch is not so hard on your head.
I had 4-5 migraines a week in my mid-late 20s, then cut out most milk, took a bit of lactase, and also diet sodas. Poof, problem solved. It just takes finding the variables.
I knew the major variable. That's why I quit my job. 😉
Diet sodas will damage your pancreas if you persist. Avoid anything with artificial sweeteners; they are much worse than sugar.
My diet has been organic since the 1970s and all my kiddies raised on pure food so reactions are pretty certainly to nature's ingredients. My daughter is fairly lactose intolerant and she did not do any better with raw milk, but yogurt or goat milk is well tolerated so you might try that as a raw milk compromise.
I had the same kind of reaction related to work. In one case, it was the diet sodas I was drinking. And another case it was the granola bars with GMO ingredients. In both cases when I left the environment, poof, headaches gone. People get a lot more headaches from processed food then they even realize. Took me several years but I finally get it. As long as I eat things with few ingredients, I’m good.
The last paragraph! 🙏
Let's live, work hard and laugh, and make the most of the time we have here, and build great friendships.
-----
I hope I added enough commas to the last sentence to make some people happy ;-)
You might try A2A2 raw milk. Far superior to “normal” raw milk. The A2 cows has an extra protein that predigests the milk so that even “lactose intolerant” people can drink it. I have 2 A2A2 Jersey cows and our milk is exceptional according to people who have tried it.
Could it be the extra hot cocoa that triggered your migraines and not the raw milk itself? Chocolate is a migraine trigger for me. Try avoiding cocoa during your third try and see if that makes a difference.
No cocoa in try 1. And we don't drink until it's not too hot.
If you're using raw milk to make cocoa, I'd have thought the heating of it essentially turns it into pasteurized milk. So any reaction to (overconsumption of) the cocoa wouldn't be a reaction to raw milk.
You could sour the milk, separate the curds and whey and see if you get any reaction to the curd cheese.
I've always tolerated pasteurized butter very well. Recently, I was eating a lot of raw cheese and pasteurized butter and tolerating the combination well. I then switched to raw, cultured butter. The combination of raw butter and raw cheese resulted in really heavy phlegm. Not sure whether it was the change to raw butter that did it or just that I'd overloaded myself on dairy! Anyway, stopped eating cheese and butter for a couple of weeks and phlegm all gone. Funny old world!
Agreed. My wife complains about migraines after having chocolate. (Depends on the chocolate).
Regarding the milk, talk to Trent! There is A1 and A2 milk from different breeds & he has some research on A2 being the kind of milk that is less allergy related. He has talked about it with me, but I cant remember the specific details.
I had the feeling I'd get some quick, new advice. Thanks to those bringing this to my attention.
I still react to raw A2 ☹️ i had high hopes..
For some people, it can be the milk protein (casein) not the lactose that causes digestive issues. To avoid that possibility, look for A2/A2 raw milk. A2/A2 protein is tolerated more easily than A2/A1 milk and is becoming more widely available.
You've mentioned being knocked out of commission by migraines on at least one other occasions. I am very sorry that you have suffered from this sometimes debilitating condition.
Rather than pinning down the cause directly it might be helpful to rule out some causes. That would include "leaky gut" (intestinal hyperpermeability) where food crosses into lymphatic system or bloodstream and triggers an autoimmune reaction. The initial trigger isn't an allergy to the food itself but what is happening to that food. My spouse gets now migraines when she eats certain foods that she historically did not react to (eggs and tree nuts).
And it could be related to the specific combination of foods consumed. Consumption of fat AND highly refined carbs at the same time has been suggested to increase "leaky gut" as distinguished from consuming a predominantly fatty or high carbohydrate meal.
In my mid-late 20s I had 4-5 migraines per week, so I experimented until I found the culprits---primarily dairy. I took lactase for a few years, but eventually didn't need it so long as I did not over-consume milk and cheese. Since then, the migraines became pretty rare---maybe one every six months or so. If I had a condition like leaky gut, perhaps I removed inflammatory dairy enough to heal.
I'd still like to find out if there is the possibility of shifting toward raw milk. I'm going to read up on topics mentioned (caseins) and see what more I can learn. Since I have few other health problems or allergies, it is perhaps possible to "solve it" all.
The Dude abides. All the Dude ever wanted was his freedom back. This is what happens when you try to poke a stranger in the arm!
I too am mildly lactose intolerant. I in have no issues with raw milk and have consuming it for years. Try starting out with smaller amounts. I buy a gallon and then split it up into pint jars and freeze them. I take one out when needed. It freezes perfectly and there is no difference in taste when defrosted. If this doesn’t work try drinking A2 milk. That gives me no issues at all even if I consume more than usual.
It's illegal here now but at one time I'd gone to a raw milk introduction at a local alternative health club and there was a farmer presenting the benefits of raw milk. One lady took one of the samples, as many of us did, but at some point she began sobbing. The presenter asked her if she was ok and she said she was so overjoyed at the idea of being able to eat ice cream again that it made her cry. She had been in the hospital, contracted that flesh eating virus, and had so many antibiotics that she became lactose intolerant.
Besides lactose intolerance, many are are intolerant of the "bad" forms of beta casein. If your farmer has NOT made sure all his milking cows have A2A2 beta casein genetics, then his farm's milk will be contain some of the problematic beta casein variants. (A1 being the most common of these.) These non-A2 variants cause many problems among milk drinkers who have imperfect gut linings.
The definitive work on this is The Devil In the Milk. https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/devil-in-the-milk/
When I lived on farm-fresh milk and maintained my grass-fed micro-dairy farm, our herd was all A2A2. I was shocked that many of my fellow dairy farmers, such as Mark McAffee, refused to prioritize getting the bad beta casein genetics out of their herds (& milk). Preferring to believe that the "magic" of "raw" (we should say "farm fresh") solves everything. It does not. People with leaky guts end up with beta-caseomorphins leaking into their bloodstream when the milk contains non-A2 beta casein. The only way to fix this is to insist on cows that are A2A2.
It's hard to get a man to see something when his paycheck depends upon him not seeing it. For a dairy farmer to face the A1/A2 issue, he has to be willing to admit that his milk is harming a significant fraction of those consuming it, and admit that he needs to get rid of a large percentage of his cows. Instead of facing this, most farmers go into denial. In my experience.
(Edited at add missing NOT above, 12:06 PM EST 12/16)
Wow! That was an interesting read, written by a dairy industry insider. 😉
Amazing what I stumble upon in these stack comments.
Thanks so much for your insight Jerome! 💖