Doctor's Best Betaine HCI Pepsin and Gentian Bitters Capsules, 360 Count

Amazing product. I am suffering from Acid Reflux due to lack of stomach acid production. These pills have been a boon for me. I do have to take more pills like 4-5 tablets before each meal. That's expensive as the product with 120 capsules doesn't last a month for me. Overall a very potent product.

very effective preparation but is extremely costly for we indians.we suggest you to make it more cost effective

Effective

Quality is good. I am finding improvement in my digestion. The 360 pack is more economical than the 120 pack.

Everything is good

OK

Good product Value for money, only thing is that courier services is very poor. If they expedite the courier service then will be good

It is good. I basically use it twice a day with breakfast and lunch, but if I eat a big meal for dinner, I take additional capsule. It helps with digestion. I recommend it.

great product

For years, I lived on the world’s most boring menu: freshly cooked meat (frozen immediately, because histamine intolerance is extra like that), rice, broccoli, yams, apples, blueberries, turmeric, butter, oregano, and salt. That’s it. No snacks. No desserts. No joy. Even with this microscopic menu, I woke up most mornings flirting with anaphylaxis. Add in chronic SIBO, a two-year run with mastitis in both breasts (despite never having kids), and vitamin deficiencies that refused to budge, and I was basically one weird symptom away from being a side plot on Grey’s Anatomy. Then came the glamorous stool test. While collecting samples (truly living the dream), I noticed something weird—many of the pills I’d been taking were coming out completely intact. I took this poop mystery to several doctors, and one of them—a naturopath—finally said, “Well, if all your pills are showing up in your stool, it probably means you have almost no stomach acid.” Okay, pause. No stomach acid? That sounded bad so I went down a rabbit hole tried Doctor’s Best HCl Betaine, and I’m not kidding—within two days, everything changed: I could eat food again. Real food. Fake food. All the food. None of the near-death drama. The chronic mastitis? Gone. (Apparently, there’s something called the “gut-breast axis,” but don’t ask me to explain it.) The SIBO that had been making me miserable for years? Not anymore. And the vitamin deficiencies that kept popping up on blood tests? They finally started improving. I thought fixing my stomach acid would just help my digestion, but it turns out, low stomach acid doesn’t just mess with your stomach—it messes with everything. Without enough stomach acid, you can’t break down proteins, absorb nutrients like B12, magnesium, and iron, or keep your gut bacteria in check. And it doesn’t stop there. Like I said, it's a whole rabbit hole. Naturally, I started obsessively Googling. That’s when I stumbled on a medical book from the 1800s, which said that if you went to a doctor back then with symptoms like IBS, bloating, diarrhea, or food intolerances (all things I'd had for YEARS), the first thing they’d assume was wrong was that you didn’t have enough stomach acid! Um, what? Their solution? Lemon juice, apple cider vinegar—basic stuff to kick-start acid production. Simple, effective, and very unmodern. Today? Doctors will slap you with antacids faster than you can say “gut-brain axis,” making the problem worse for so many people. It wasn’t until much later—after Doctor’s Best gave me my food back and my vitamin levels normalized—that I learned how stomach acid is connected to GERD (which I’ve never had) and a bunch of other issues I did have. After that, I talked to a GI specialist who knew the term for “low stomach acid” (hypochlorhydria) but had no idea how to treat it. Her solution for GERD? Surgery to tighten the esophageal valve—a valve that literally depends on stomach acid to close. Make it make sense. Here’s why Doctor’s Best is now my ride-or-die: It Works: Thanks to the added bitters, I get results with a smaller dose than other brands I’ve tried (and trust me, I’ve tried a lot). Gelatin Capsules: When I take cellulose capsule HCl supplements, they don't work.. unless I open them bc my body doesn't make enough acid to open cellulose. These are the ONLY HCl betaine in gelatin that I've ever seen. Affordable: It’s more effective than pricier options, so my wallet is as happy as my stomach (and my milk-ducts). Here’s how I used it: Start with one capsule per meal. Add one capsule at each meal until you feel a slight burning sensation. (If that happens, I ate more food, drank some milk, and you was fine.) Back off by one capsule, and that’s your sweet spot. Some people can taper off once their stomach acid normalizes, but I haven’t been able to do that yet... Between my underlying conditions (Lyme, mold toxicity, and MCAS) I might never be a free-spirit eater again. And because Amazon doesn’t love sweeping medical claims: I’m not a doctor, and I can’t guarantee this will work for everyone. Health is deeply personal and nuanced. But if you’re like I was—desperate, exhausted, and stuck on a bland, depressing diet—this might be worth looking into. For me, this has been one of the three most important supplements I've found (and I've tried hundreds) -the others are benfothiamine and molybdenum.

I think the product itself might be ok, but I question whether adding more acid is really the answer for heartburn sufferers. At first I thought it seemed to be working, but in following days, I felt worse acid than ever. I wonder if I wasn't eating enough meat protein while taking it to really benefit from it. I took it when I ate a cumulatively large amount of protein, but from non-meat sources. So I think it was far too much acid for me. But can anyone actually answer whether or not this should be taken with only meat protein sources? What about other protein sources? Frustratingly, I have been unable to find the answer. On another note, I suffer from acid reflux no matter what I eat or don't eat (even on an empty stomach--sometimes especially on an empty stomach). So to just take this for protein perhaps doesn't solve my problems. At least not on its own. Zantac mostly helped me, as did PPIs, but I don't want to use PPIs long-term, and Zantac didn't always work as well as I needed it to. I also agree with most recent research that acid reducers and PPIs are over-prescribed and definitely not an answer to get at the source of the heartburn problem (unless, as sounds very rare, you do actually have an excess of stomach acid), but I don't think Betaine HCl is "it" yet, either. I never get the warming sensation as described in the self-experimenting stomach acid test, but I also don't believe it would be safe to take a ton of these. Furthermore, it sounds like to take these, you should be eating a steak like every day to do the "plus one more pill a day until your symptoms change" self-test. I just don't eat that much meat that frequently to know if I'm doing the dosage test properly. I like the addition of digestive bitters in this product, however, and I've also done a lot of research that suggests bitters work throughout the whole digestive system, but they also work by being tasted. In a pill form, I don't taste the bitters. For now, I have quit taking the Betaine HCl. Instead, I am trying Urban Moonshine's citrus digestive bitters (liquid form so I can taste it) and d-Limonene (in conjunction with Peptic Care--just in case I have any issues that need healing). I have not taken the d-Limonene long enough to know if it will mostly cure my heartburn or not, but the few small studies done on it suggest that it works over a two-week treatment period.

To say that this product has changed my life would be the understatement of the century! After several years of health issues, I was diagnosed with a 4.5 cm ovarian cyst. Since then, my already poor digestion has gotten exponentially worse by the day and so has the pain and other symptoms I was experiencing- acid reflux/heartburn, bloating, deep pelvic and lower back aching, fatigue, exhaustion, low energy, anxiety, depression, insomnia, having to pee 8-10 times a night, constipation, crazy menstrual cycles that would sometimes last a month, I couldn’t stand up for two minutes without having to sit because my body hurt so bad… I was associating all of these things with my ovarian cyst and so were my doctors… I honestly didn’t think I would make it through until my surgery that was scheduled to take place in a month… Well, one day while awaiting my surgery, I randomly happened upon this product through my mom who had, against her doctor’s advice, just started taking it for her acid reflux/GERD. Out of desperation I swallowed one capsule when my heartburn was flaring up. Low and behold, my heartburn completely subsided in under 2 minutes… And thus begun my journey of research and self healing. Among many other things that I learned was the fact that vegetarians almost always have low stomach acid- I’ve been a vegetarian for 28 years. Turns out that if you have low stomach acid, which I clearly did, the sphincter in your esophagus stays open and you will experience acid reflux… however, more importantly, you should know that you cannot break down or digest your food either and therefore you cannot absorb the essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients in ANYTHING you are ingesting- not only food but vitamins, minerals, and any herbal supplements as well. The longer this goes on for the more malnourished you will get. Then, the white coats tell you to take antacids to relieve your acid reflux, which is the complete OPPOSITE of what you need and hardly even a bandaid on the situation. Antacids, while they temporarily relieve your symptoms, will only further reduce your stomach acid and thus exasperate your digestion, your health will go into a downward spiral. Not only can low stomach acid lead to physical illness but mental illness as well, i.e. depression and anxiety, both of which I believe are your body trying to signal you that something is wrong and you aren’t getting the nutrients you need! A week ago I ordered some for my little sister who has suffered from debilitating fibromyalgia for over a decade, gone to numerous doctors, specialists, had every test under the sun, and never gotten a single answer or even any temporary relief. Her symptoms have continued to worsen and her health, both physical and mental, have declined as well. She has been taking HCL now for a week and already getting significant relief. I will update this review when more time has passed but judging by how much she has already improved I expect her to make a fully recovery. If you are suffering from any of the symptoms or health issues mentioned, I advise you to do your own independent research because, as was exemplified the past two years (and longer), the white coats can’t be trusted!