Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For three years, I suffered from severe reactions to food: eye pain, cognitive impairment, lethargy, apathy. It felt like a hangover, except 10x worse and lasting 1-3 days! Many foods triggered this and I could never pinpoint a specific thing to eliminate. The original cause was a “botched liver cleanse”: I started a liver cleanse that involved tons of apple cider vinegar, when I was still sick with a cold from traveling. My body was already compromised, and I’m certain the acidity of ACV caused my issues. This is a rare warning note for ACV, which is highly touted as being beneficial. (I’m sure it still is, just not in my unique situation.) So for three years, I suffered from long-lasting, worse-than-normal “hangovers” 1-3x per week. Needless to say, it wrecked my life. Normal doctors were clueless. I went to a naturopath, and her expensive appointments and pricey (though reasonable) supplement regiment did not help either. I felt good about the supplements so I’m not dissing them (Restore Complete, RepairVite, H-PLR, GlutenFlam) … they just didn’t work. I tried emphasizing this to her, but she just pushed the whole “avoid gluten and dairy” paranoia, so I avoided milk outright, even though I don’t fully buy into the anti-gluten/dairy concept. With 8 months on her plan I noticed only mild improvement, maybe 15%. Somehow Vitamin D+K actually helped me the most in a 2 month span, maybe 60%. But there were still episodes with no clear trigger. Not yet 100% healthy. Then after an odd run-in with spicy Chinese food (I avoid spice, but ordered it accidentally and committed to the dish), I experienced episodes again when I hadn’t for a couple weeks. This experience gave rise to the theory that my issues were due to “sore patches” in my intestines. Imagine a lawn that has its grass torn up, exposing the dirt. The lawn becomes “raw.” My gut “felt” like that. So what was the solution? I needed a “tarp” to cover the the grass and the exposed parts so that “rough activity” (like spicy Chinese food, pizza, and everything else I eat) wouldn’t tear it up, AND would allow the grass to regrow in order to heal the lawn! Enter slippery elm. WOW. It deserves 100 stars from me. I’m fairly certain it resolved my “sore patches” overnight, as the next day I had pizza (a risky food) with zero issues. However, I took the whole bottle diligently over the last 35 days and this is my report. For the first time in three years, I had ZERO episodes during the last month. I might’ve had minor symptoms once or twice, but I say “might” because I can’t recall as they were not insufferable. I have not gone a full month without major food-induced suffering for three years, and I desperately tried 75-125 different supplements, eliminations, and approaches. So for me, this is a miracle. To emphasize, I now have zero issues with my “normal diet” (for better and worse), including gluten and dairy *products*. However, yesterday I did a test by ordering hot chocolate with 2% milk, since almond wasn’t available, and today I have a very mild eye ache. So on the one hand I can confirm that milk isn’t great for me right now, but on the other hand I’ve been eating cheese throughout the month without an issue (including macaroni and cheese, a gluten+dairy nuclear bomb, without issue). My current theory is that mainstream homogenized milk is risky, because the smaller particles get through the gut lining, so my next test will be to try non-homogenized milk from a local, private farm and see what happens. Right now I’m getting another bottle of this since it already worked, and am adding in marshmallow, aloe vera, and DGL licorice for good measure. I was going to get a combined formula of these, but I don’t want to risk the efficacy I experienced with this particular bottle of slippery elm. It single-handedly healed my gut to 90-95%. I’ve been dreaming of 100% gut health for three years, and now it’s well within reach. EDIT 01/12/22: More than a year later I discovered that my debilitating mind/energy/eye symptoms were sulfur/sulfate sensitivity, via molybdenum deficiency, made worse with mutations in the genes CBS (which requires B6 but not too much of when it’s up-regulated) and SUOX (which requires molybdenum). IIRC I looked up what nutrients slippery elm has, and it had a fair amount of molybdenum which must have helped me. I totally forgot about the “rough intestine” symptom until a couple weeks ago, when I felt it once and couldn’t remember how I solved it. Funny that this review popped up as a notification for ten people finding it helpful! So I thought I’d update it with the molybdenum part. I bet I was dealing with two distinct issues, and slippery elm addressed both (though the cognitive issues actually came back later, which led me to discovering molybdenum).