Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

2016 UPDATE below original review----- 2021 UPDATE below 2016 update——- ORIGINAL REVIEW: I'm a young person, late 20s, who has been ill with mystery bowel issues (the unpredictable, potentially uncontrolable kind - ick!) for two years. Doctors can't figure me out. I had a bottle of enzymes sitting in my cabinet that I'd never tried, so as a last resort I used them. After that meal, I didn't have an instant 'urge' and run off to the restroom. I read the ingredients carefully and noticed they included Betaine HCL. It was the only ingredient in that enzyme mix that wasn't in the ones I'd tried before, to no avail. After about a week, I decided to order this straight Betaine and Pepsin supplement. The bottle says to take one pill with a meal, however for dinner and lunch, I require 2. Guess what! My bowel issues are almost unnoticeable!!! Not even daily Imodium and Lomotil could give me this comfort. It's not a complete cure, but I don't constantly feel icky and worried about what my body will do at any moment. If you've been diagnosed with the old "IBS" crapola, then you might consider low stomach acid as your malady. Doctors haver NEVER mentioned this to me, yet all my symptoms fit the bill. If this supplement stops working for me, I'll edit my review at that time. Shipment was quick and received in a timely manner. UPDATE 10/2016: Well, it appears that I've now been enduring this mystery illness for roughly 7 years. Man, the time flies, doesn't it? At any rate, I wanted to offer a status update in regards to my bowel, in case it may help anyone or at least provide a bit of hope. When I wrote my original review, I was having urgent, almost pure liquid episodes several times per day, nearly any time any partical of food (or even water!) would cross my lips. It was an instant response to eating that would have me RUNNING to the bathroom to avoid an accident at the dinner table. Sometimes, even if I hadn't eaten anything recently, the episodes would occur randomly, leaving me in quite a predicament numerous times while out and about in town. I have used nearly every bathroom at the local shopping malls, grocery stores, etc. Not fun, not to mention humiliating. For the second half of my 20s and early part of my 30s, I was living a mostly reclusive lifestyle, barely ever stepping outside the home due to these uncontrolled issues. I saw many, many doctors and specialists of all sorts, had every bowel/digestive exam under the sun, to no avail. Loperamide, cholestyramin, Xifaxin before it was on the market, bentyl, fiber supps, Lotronex, lomotil... Can't remeber all of the prescribed remedies now, but I will say the most reliable for me was loperamide. At one point I was taking 2 mg every morning and 2mg every night along with my Garden of Life probiotics. Though in my worst years it didn't completely solve the problem, it really did take the edge off of symptoms so that I could venture out of the house for hours as long as I didn't eat anything. I tried these pills and had good results until one night when I was on vacation. I had pizza at dinner, which oddly enough was normally 'safe' for me, but that night, despite the betaine, I had a horrible embarrassing night in the hotel room bathroom the day my now-husband proposed to me on a trip. After that I said "F-it, these don't work!!" And I stopped using them that day. I don't think I should have. I found an old bottle in my personal apothecary cabinet (LOL!) and for the past 3 days have been giving them another go. Though my symptoms have magically improved over the last year on their own (???), I still rely on strong probiotics and avoiding many foods to keep symptoms lessened. I have been experimenting by taking one of these pills either in the middle or at the end of my big meals that would normally cause a bit of distress for me each night. I do believe these have been helping again. Though my urgent bathroom needs have abated a lot, I still have messed up movements when I do go. I am definitely not normal like I was in my youth, and I may never be again. In place of the crazy bathroom visits, I now also get horrible painful gas if I eat many of my favorite veggies. I try to be healthy but it harms my love life, if you know what I mean. So, I am happy to say - these have helped!! I have tried the pills with a couple veggies that I rarely eat nowadays, and it has made a difference. So again, I recommend!! Now, here is a list of foods that I've compiled over the the past 7 years that I must avoid at all costs or suffer embarrassing, painful, exhausting, distressful consequences. Maybe my list will help you. I no longer consume onions, garlic, cauliflower, broccoli, apples, pears, grapes, dried fruits, asparagus, whole wheat flour, beans, mannitol, sorbitol, malititol, xylitol, chicory root, inulin, isomalt...I'm pretty certain I'm simply overly sensitive to fodmaps. So altering your diet is highly recommended by ME! I DO eat melons, berries, apple SAUCE, rice, chicken, turkey, fish, cucumbers, spinach, kale, avocado, eggs, white flour, almond flour, potatoes, milks, etc. I basically don't eat from restaurants if at all possible and I cook EVERYthing at home from scratch. The sad thing is, since I've gotten better at managing my symptoms, I've put back on all the weight and more that I may have lost during my initial illness. LOL! Food, glorious food! Amiright?? ;) Another downer - My energy levels are still that of a slug mixed with a sloth, I have no drive to move or exercise (Though I do try) and my hair continues to look like wiry cotton candy that is weak and hasn't shined in nearly a decade. Bummer. Good luck to you! 2021 UPDATE - A couple quick observations for any who are suffering. One of my last gastro docs decided I have diverticulitis and she placed me on antibiotics for 3 weeks just to see if that would help my symptoms. It did. Those three weeks, and for about 2 months after, my bowels behaved better than that had in ten years. Eventually, the effects wore off. I don’t like to be on any prescription meds (all my medical problems have led me to not trust the medical machine...) so I chose to battle on by myself. Now, I made a diet change about two years ago that made a bigger impact on my day to day life than anything else. Firstly, I watched the documentary “Earthlings” on YT. Wow. Changed my life almost instantaneously. After that, I became 95% vegan. What’s amazing is that my stomach got MUCH better when I cut out the meat! I have no clue why. I’d already not consumed dairy since my early 20s. Now I eat fresh fruit, which I had avoided for almost a decade. I eat whatever fruit I want, but I’m careful not to overeat grapes and cherries and pitted fruits that can be problematic for even normal folks when consumed in excess. I also eat any veggie (and salads!!) that I want, though I still get gaseous after white or yellow onions, so I stick to green and purple. And sweet potatoes/yams kill my intestines, so I don’t eat those often. After going animal-free, I went from needing loperamide every day to not taking anything and even having constipation certain days. I had to go back to the doc to make sure I was okay since it was such a drastic turn of events for me. From watery to bulky to even too solid same days. Crazy. One additional note before I go - Certain nuts (especially almonds) can make movements too hard and cause a bit of localized bleeding, like my skin is being cut.. even when ground into a butter. I don’t know what it is about almonds especially, but I avoid those to be on the safe side now, and I eat all other nuts only on special occasions. And I still 100% avoid anything fried. Absolute no no. The saturation of oily fat in fried foods is like an instant laxative. Not good. These are just things have made a difference in my life, to the point I can live again. I’m not saying you have to go vegan or anything like that. Just maybe change the meats you consume or eat meat only twice per week and see if that changes anything. We’re all our own experiment, aren’t we?