Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This stuff is great...! Last year at about this time I discovered that there was pretty much nothing I could eat that did not give me a very bad case of heartburn. It didn't matter what it was, or how much it was, I could hardly swallow, and whatever I ate would immediately start giving me "sour burps". I've never had anything like this happen to me before, and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I had gotten where I was only eating one meal a day, and that meal would just sit in my stomach for hours and hours. Normally, I'd be ready to eat again in 3 - 4 hours, but not anymore. 12 hours later and I could still feel whatever I ate sitting in my stomach, and I just had no desire to eat at all. Not only did I have no desire to eat, since whatever I ate just sat in my stomach forever, it seemed, but it actually hurt to swallow. It hurt to swallow water. It hurt to swallow milk... and the pain I felt when I swallowed wasn't in the back of my throat, it was just below the sternum, right above my stomach. Of course, now I know this is where the pyloric valve is, which is the valve at the bottom of your esophagus that empties into your stomach. But I didn't know it at the time. I just knew it hurt real bad when I tried to swallow... and it didn't matter what it was. It hurt to swallow anything, no matter how much or how little it was. To get rid of the heartburn, I had graduated from taking Rolaids and Tums, to just stirring a heaping teaspoon of baking soda into a glass of water and drinking it down. Invariably, within a few seconds I'd start belching as the baking soda neutralized the stomach acid. But nothing got better. In fact, over time, things just got worse until I was only eating once a day, and then eventually, I was only eating a few mouthfuls of whatever I decided to have when I did eat on any particular day. After quite a bit of reading on the internet about what others had been through when they went to their doctors, some having permanent damage from the various "antacids" they were put on (like prevacid) that caused the stomach to stop secreting its natural digestive juices, and others who after years of being treated for high stomach acidity found out their problem was actually low stomach acidity, I realized I was going to have to figure it out for myself as the medical profession was still in the dark ages when it came to understanding problems with the digestive tract as evidenced by all of these stories from people with symptoms very similar to mine. Eventually, I came across information about a particular bacteria found in the digestive tract that was named after the pyloric valve, H. Pylori, apparently in recognition of this pain it caused in that area when it grows beyond healthy levels. When I started reading about the symptoms of having an H. pylori bacteria overgrowth in ones digestive tract, it seemed to fit me perfectly. All of the symptoms were there, but how to get it back under control...? That was the next thing to figure out. Eventually I came across some information that explained that- Mastic Gum naturally kills off this particular bacteria, that it's unique in this ability, and that it's recommended to take it in the amount of 1,000 mg. two or three times a day (with meals, essentially), and for 2 full months. So, I ordered up 1 bottle initially, just to see what results, if any, I might get from it. After my bottle of Mastic Gum arrived, I opened the bottle immediately and started taking it. Two capsules at a time, 1,000mg with each dose, just as I'd read about. The first day I didn't notice much of anything. Nor on the second. But on the third day, I began to start feeling a little better, I thought, though it still hurt to swallow and I still only felt like eating once a day. By the end of the first week, some foods weren't causing heartburn like they had been, and it was taking longer for the heartburn to show up. By the end of the 2nd week, it didn't hurt to swallow after the first swallow, though that first swallow still did hurt, and some foods weren't causing me heartburn at all, while others still did. By the end of the month, it didn't hurt to swallow anymore. Most foods weren't causing me heartburn anymore either, although other foods, like things with tomato sauce, or onions, or peppers, did. I was a lot better, and probably could have stopped taking the Mastic Gum at this point and been happy with it... but I'd read that you needed to take it for 2 full months to really get the H. Pylori under control, or it could flare up again and come back with all the same symptoms all over again. So, I ordered a second bottle. I started taking the Mastic Gum again once the second bottle arrived, but to be honest, with the pain from swallowing no longer being there and no more heartburn, and with whatever I ate now being released from my stomach and hour or so after I ate once again, it was pretty hard to remember to keep taking the Mastic Gum every day before every meal. After about the second week, I just kinda forgot about it, to be honest. It's been pretty much an entire year now and I'm still symptom free. I can eat anytime, day or night, and everything is back to normal and working as it should. I've had some "gurus" try to tell me I should do all kinds of tests to find out if I've got low stomach acid, or high stomach acid, and they've made it into such a complicated and convoluted exercise that it seems much more like some kind of glorification of their ego to lead people down such pathways than to really help others, and I've pretty much told them so. The fact is, Mastic Gum is very inexpensive. If you've experienced any of the symptoms that I described myself as having above, do what I did and order yourself a bottle. If it works for you, like it did for me, then order up that second bottle, and be free of these uncomfortable symptoms once and for all, and be done with it. If it works, it works, and everyone who wants to spread their tests and their theories around can all go jump in a lake. If it doesn't, what have you lost... only the cost of a bottle of this stuff... and the sooner you get it and give it a try, the sooner you'll find out if itll fix you up the way it did me or not.... As far as I'm concerned, I'm glad I avoided the expense and the experimentation that going to a doctor would have entailed, as well as avoiding the possible long term damage these things they prescribe to treat "high stomach acidity" can cause.... and although I read a lot of material on how to determine if you have low stomach acid, and had more than one "guru" tell me how "important" it was to determine if I had high or low stomach acid, it really didn't matter, because an overgrowth of H. Pylori will give you the same symptoms whether you have high or low stomach acid, so, its simply irrelevant and will correct itself once the H. Pylori is killed off and the intestinal flora is back in the proper balance the way it's supposed to be.... So, yes, I highly recommend this stuff... you've got nothing to lose, except perhaps what's ailing your tummy.... Read up on H. Pylori, and see if the symptoms don't fit you as well... if you don't have "sour burps", and a pain below your sternum when you swallow, you may just need some Metamucil to add some missing fiber to your diet to get things moving once again (tip: drink it immediately, not after it starts to "gel".. the "gelling" should happen in the tummy, not in the glass).... that's all that was needed for my ex-wife to get straightened out years earlier... for me, it was a bit more severe, and the Metamucil alone just did nothing to alleviate any of the symptoms I was having at all.