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?