Forever Blessed Cassava Supplement Review

I bought a product called “Forever Blessed” on Amazon with the hopes of helping my fertility, and I assume that most of you are reading this article looking for reviews on the product.  Let me be clear – I do not work for Forever Blessed, and I do not work for any of their competitors, or any other pharmaceutical company.  This is a review based on my personal experience, I am not a doctor, your personal mileage may vary, and I am listing side effects that could be coincidental and are potentially unrelated to Forever Blessed.  Now that we have that out of the way:

Since I am usually sensitive to medications, the “no reported side effects” boast from Forever Blessed (shown in the screen shot at the bottom) really caught my attention.  It’s made out of Cassava, which is a plant, and I try to look for natural products over chemical concoctions.  I took the Forever Blessed Cassava supplement for 27 days and I have felt “off” the entire time, with no other changes in my diet or lifestyle while I took these pills.  I am not saying that my issues were definitely caused by Forever Blessed pills, or that you will have the same experience if you take them.  However, I am concerned enough that I want to throw out a generalized caution.

I would like to say that, based on my research and personal experience, this product is BOGUS. It is designed to make a few bucks on hopeful parents-to-be who are likely having issues conceiving. How can I say this with any certainty? Because
1) that’s why I bought it, and
2) if this product was legitimate, Pfizer, or a similar drug company, would have bought out this business and made it available in every drug store next to the pregnancy tests.

As for the side effects, I’d say that they started within a few hours.  After a while, the symptoms went from mildly noticeable to very consuming.  Over the course of those 27 days I’ve felt lightheaded, dehydrated, dizzy, extreme nausea, moderate on-and-off cramping, feeling unable to get out of bed, burning up and freezing at the same time, and I have had problems making out smaller print words recently.  I’ve also had a number of migraines, which I am prone to already, but they usually don’t hit me without some kind of light provocation (a bad glare off of a windshield, or the like).  I thought, well, I probably caught a bad cold, or maybe the flu, and I kept going with the pills.  However, it’s been four weeks, and I seem to have worsening symptoms, which were topped off yesterday with kidney pain and a bleeding rectum as I raced to the bathroom (sorry – TMI, I know).  Something is wrong, and while I can’t, and am not, proclaiming definitively that the Forever Blessed supplements caused all, or any, of my issues, the timing is very suspicious and I was not having most of these symptoms before.  Now, for full disclosure, I do have an ulcer, but there are no side effects or warnings to not take this product or to consult a doctor if I have an ulcer.

Personally, I did not want the issue to be these pills, because, if this supplement was real, then it would save tens of thousands of dollars in fertility treatments.  I had put some desperate hopes into these pills, so I held firm to the “no reported side effects” claim from the manufacturer (shown in the FAQ screen shot in the bottom).  But, my husband decided to do some digging when I couldn’t get myself out of bed today.  http://herbpathy.com/Uses-and-Benefits-of-Cassava-Cid3805 claims that Cassava has dizziness and vision troubles as side effects right off the bat.  http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles08/cassava-cyanide-poisoning.htm claims that Cassava Root in particular can be like cyanide if not prepared properly (and there are NO comments on the Forever Blessed website about where or in what type of facility the supplements are prepared – see screen cap at bottom of page).  In fact, the threat of Cassava is so real that the Japanese Ministry of Health forbids Cassava for human consumption.  http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/cassava.html then goes on to list that symptoms for eating raw Cassava Root include “vomiting, nausea, dizziness, stomach pains, headache, and death.”  Obviously, I haven’t died, but all the others have applied, which makes me wonder how these supplements are being made.  http://www.kidney-symptom.com/kidney-failure-diet/789.html#6d likewise mentions that patients with kidney issues should not take Cassava, as the toxicity can build up in organs like the kidney (I have not had any kidney issues before this pain started yesterday).

Then I found, http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/medical/cassava_poisoning.htm – which lists 18 symptoms for “Cassava Poisoning,” which are:

• Diarrhea (check)
• Nausea (super check!)
• Vomiting (mild check)
• Abdominal pain (check)
• Headache (migraines!)
• Dizziness (check)
• Lethargy (check)
• Dilated pupils
• Spasms
• Irregular breathing
• Weakness (check)
• Excitement and depression (check)
• Labored breathing
• Chills (check)
• Sweating (check)
• Visual disturbance (check)
• Convulsions
• Intermittently flaccid muscles

With 12 out of 18 symptoms matching this description, it seems like Cassava poisoning is likely the culprit causing most of my symptoms.

I also found an article warning against supplements in general, and that 23,000 people go to the emergency room every year over them http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/23000-people-us-end-er-annually-because-supplements .  While Cassava isn’t specifically mentioned here, it certainly makes a strong case that “no reported side effects” is a b/s response.  The article also warns that you should not take any supplements without a doctor’s recommendation, because they have zero benefit if you don’t need them.

Now, the Forever Blessed website says that there is no cyanide in their pills, because they use “Ultra Fine Cassava.”  However, I’m having difficulty finding that term anywhere that isn’t on a page about Forever Blessed or another obscure product.  I would still question where they are getting this product, and how they know it’s reliable, especially if they’re a home-based company.  I mean, they say on their website that they cannot offer phone support, or else they’d have to charge an extra $2 per bottle, which sounds like a very smart business plan if you don’t want to get calls hounding you about selling goods that don’t do what they claim.  There’s a reason we don’t see many mom-and-pop supplement stands in America…  Like I said before, my symptoms could all be a coincidence, but it’s a little horrifying to see that they match very closely to issues associated with Cassava ingestion, especially with the link to kidney pain, which I’ve never had before.

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Side effects aside – something seems strange about the supplement’s packaging.  With Forever Blessed, the product feels very homemade, which is not necessarily a good thing when you are putting a crushed up powdered substance into your body.  The manufacturer is listed as “Forever Blessed Twins LLC,” which, you know, it’s always a good sign when the name of a supplement is the same as the manufacturer – super legit when no reputable brand or factory name is attached to a creation that you are going to ingest.  There isn’t even a full address listed for the company, which means a lawyer would have to do some digging if someone wanted to sue from unlisted side effects.  And the pills are not stamped or marked, so you can’t be sure that there were no mix-ups – this is essentially a take-at-your-own-risk situation.

The bottle itself seems generic, like it may be from a craft store; and the label seems non-professionally designed to me (I work in graphics, and that is my opinion). The UPC code, while valid, is so squished up and blurry, I doubt a retail scanner could read the barcode.  There are no copyright logos on the bottle, and the expiration date is also printed on the label, not stamped, as you would find on any typical factory issued bottle (factories don’t tend to reprint labels for each batch of pills they produce, so they stamp the bottles).

The directions read: “Take one (1) capsule in the morning daily.” There are no remarks about warnings or the standard “consult a doctor if,” and there is no labeling about this product being FDA approved.

The lack of FDA approval isn’t necessarily unusual for supplements, most of my store-bought supplements say they have not been FDA evaluated – but they SAY that on the bottle.  This is one more reason to question what you’re getting and how effective it truly is.  After all, we are in a day and age where companies like Your Baby Can Read are sued and shut down for false/misleading advertising, and claiming to help women conceive twins is a tall order to fill or prove.  Also notice that the bottle doesn’t make the no side effects claim.

The Forever Blessed bottle also doesn’t include much information on what the dosages contain. The bottle says “900mg per capsule,” but is that 100% Cassava? Every other supplement I’ve ever purchased has listed the ingredients, as well as what that dosage is towards your daily intake recommendations. The FAQ on their website says it is 100% Cassava, but it seems odd that the bottle does not describe this.

Their website also comes off as more of a personal blog than a professional site, and that concerns me in hindsight, now that I’m mentally absorbing the possibility of having side effects, because we really have no idea what all could be in these pills or who is putting them together, where their product is coming from, if it’s being handled in a consumption safe manner, etc.  Their website has a “How It’s Made” section that shows generic stock photos and tells you no real information on where, or how, this product is made.

It basically says Cassava grows from a seed, it’s harvested, it’s ground up, and it’s put in a gel cap.  Oh, wait, they do mention that any Cassava with brown specs in it will cause upset stomach and diarrhea.  Gee, if you count nausea as an upset stomach, I’ve had both of these issues!  Hmm, who is doing the Forever Blessed quality control?  I’m starting to envision one woman ordering a powdered substance off the internet and filling gel caps in her kitchen…  Honestly, I could be taking sugar pills and actually have some extended type of flu that’s making me feel awful, because there is zero proof that the website is truthful or accurate.  Even the testimonials are all cherry picked, and you cannot submit an instant review to be seen on the website.

Plus, the general lack of directions on the packaging are weird.  When I received my bottle, I wasn’t really clear on what to do next. I had a 30 day supply with no instructions on when I should start taking the pills. Should I start at the beginning of my period? The day after it ends? The middle of my cycle? What?! Since this is a product that supposedly stimulates fertility, wouldn’t the time that you start taking it matter?  I had to go to the FAQ on their website to read that I can take the supplements at any time. What if I didn’t have the internet and needed answers?  Who would I call?  Who would I write?  The company does not provide any contact information aside from an email address.

These are all things that I overlooked or chose not to look into at first because I wanted to believe in this product.  That was my fault for taking Forever Blessed at face value.  I hope others will be wiser than I was.

I’d like to share the Forever Blessed FAQ screen shot that verifies several things I’ve mentioned in this blog.  You may also note a typo or two (“Out Cassava can be taken right away”), which, again, speaks to the general “professionalism” surrounding this product.  At the bottom of the website, it says “powered by WordPress.”  So am I, and that’s worrysome that a supplement product that’s been around since 1999 can’t even afford a professional website.

The final nail in the coffin for me is the bottle’s own description of “with peak chances [of twins] occurring after 6 months of supplement use.”  You can see this on my personal images of the bottle above (in the directions).  That, to me, sounds like a hidden disclaimer for a no-good product, as it offers no statistics, no scientific data, no guarantees, just a lot of hype that gets negated by saying buzz words like “odds,” “percentages,” “individuals.”  Six months of use is a way to get about $100 out of you before you realize that this product may be no good.  “Peak chances” also basically implies that it’s your fault if the product doesn’t work like you expect it to, because your body is different.

Basically, these pills are like claiming that wearing yellow socks can help you run faster.  Can you prove that they don’t help you?  Are you measuring in microseconds?  Well did you run with them on everyday for six months so that the socks could better form fit your body’s needs?  See, there’s lots of wiggle room to not hold the manufacturer accountable for their claim that this product boosts your odds for twins, because you can’t ever prove what your odds of twins are unless you are constantly being medically evaluated during each cycle.  While would-be-future-parents often get desperate, I don’t believe that Cassava is any miracle supplement that will give you twins, and I, personally, feel foolish for having tried it.  This is all just my two cents, use your own judgement.