I keep forgetting my lactose intolerance. I do remember it when I’m doing my grocery shopping. But for some things there are no lactose-free alternatives, and then I just buy the normal stuff and plan to take a lactase tablet when I eat it. Yogurts, for example. There are very few lactose-free alternatives and none of them taste well. Or anything with ricotta cheese.

The problem is that when I get to actually eating these things I forget about the tablets. I’ve been eating normal yogurt for decades so I just do it on autopilot. And a few hours later my stomach feels like a balloon and my clothes literally don’t fit me any more.

Knowing that my waist circumference at this point is 4 cm larger than normal, I wonder if could you calculate the volume of intestinal gas from that, and then the amount of lactose that was digested by bacteria instead of myself.