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SHINE Protocol

Andrew

Senior Member
Messages
2,513
Location
Los Angeles, USA
Dr. Teitelbaum's SHINE protocol is much maligned. One can read any number of posts here that criticize Dr. Teitelbaum's business practices. I've decided to take a more serious look at his study and his claims.

I read Dr. Teitelbaum's study. He studied Fibro patients and then generalized it out to CFS patients based on the fact that his Fibro subjects also had some CFS symptoms. This is a bad method because there are lots of illnesses that have some symptoms in common with CFS. And I'm not saying that FM and CFS don't have much in common. They do. But CFS and FM patients tend to respond to some treatments differently. Also, the study involved asking people if they felt "much worse, worse, same, better or much better" at the end of the study. We don't know what caused this. For example, he didn't break his subjects into those who were only given sleep aids versus those who were on the entire Shine protocol (which includes sleep aids). It has been my observation that most of us feel much better if we get the sleep under control.

FWIW, there is only one part of the SHINE protocol that was given to all subjects (the rest of the protocol was individualized to specific characteristics of the patients). Your doctor could help you try this part, if you want to. As you can see,, most of it addresses sleep.

a. Medicines That All Patients Received
For Sleep:
A Melatonin 3/10 mg P.O. QHS (28) and
B Valerian 180 mg/Melissa 90 mg combination (Valerian Rest by To Your Health), 1-2
tablets P.O. QHS (29)
Plus the below treatments as needed to result in 7-8 hours of solid sleep without waking or
next-day sedation. Mixing of a low dose of several medications was used instead of a high
dose of a single agent in order to decrease next-day sedation.
A Zolpidem (Ambien) 10 mg, –1 P.O. QHS and/or
B Trazodone (Desyrel) 25–200 mg P.O. QHS and/or
C Cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril) 10 mg, –2 P.O. QHS (30,31) and/or
D Carisprodol (Soma) 350 mg, –1 P.O. QHS and/or
E Amitriptyline (Elavil) 10 mg, –5 P.O. QHS (31,32) and/or
F Clonazepam (Klonopin) mg, –8 tablets P.O. QHS
For Nutritional Support (these two supplements are used long-term):
A Daily One Cap Multivitamin (Twinlab), 1 tablet P.O. QAM
B Magnesium with malic acid (Fibrocare by To Your Health), 2 tablets p.o. Tid