You are very welcome, I am glad I can help. You can also try SQL IN clause, so you will get rid of the OR operators. However, you will need to compare each user input, ie. $mysidia->input->post("item"), and $mysidia->input->post("item2") so that your users wont enter the same item for item1, item2, etc. Here is an example for two items SQL:
Code:
$items = "({$mysidia->input->post('item')}, {$mysidia->input->post('item2')})";
$whereClause = "(item IN {$items} and item2 IN $items)";
Read the below tutorial on w3schools, and it will help:
http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_in.asp