Does anybody have any ideas in response to Helena's
posting from a few days ago about coffee as a possible
laxative?  I'm having an unexplained recurrence of my
chronic diarrhea and I'm wondering if it may be related
to coffee.

Ever since I began avoiding lactose, I've noticed that
sometimes my stomach starts to rumble after drinking
coffee.  I've even wondered if maybe I was developing
an allergy to casein which is an ingredient in the
non-dairy creamer that I use.  However, this has been
an extremely minor problem.  I hadn't noticed whether
it happens when I have coffee with Lactaid milk.

But the day before yesterday, I had chronic
diarrhea in the morning and through mid-day,
beginning after eating instant oatmeal with Lactaid-100
milk, coffee with Lactaid-100 milk, and orange juice.
(The night before I had had take-out Chinese food for
dinner, which I thought was maybe the problem.)  I was
fine by evening, but yesterday it started up again after
having the same thing for breakfast.  It continued all
day.  I felt fine when I got up today (and avoided
coffee), but the problem began again about an hour
after a breakfast of lactose-free cereal with Lactaid-100
and orange juice.

The coffee grounds were bought from a high-priced
coffee bar from which I've bought coffee before and not
noticed a problem (or maybe I had one and thought it
was a lactose problem).  I had not had any of this brand
of coffee for at least a week before this happened.

Any thoughts?