This page describes what people report after running The Scorch Protocol, and, more usefully, who tends to report the biggest changes. It deliberately does not lead with a success rate.
The reports behind it come from symptom questionnaires filled in by people in the dry fasting community: once before starting, again after the fasting block and refeed, and again after T3 and hGH therapy for those who went that far. Each person rated their own symptoms on a simple scale. That is a real signal, and it is also a limited one. The scores are self-assessed, no response was verified against a medical record or a lab result, and people who feel better are far more likely to come back and say so than people who quietly stopped. I would rather tell you that plainly than dress it up with a decimal point.
What People Report
Fatigue, brain fog, and insomniaThese three were tracked the closest, because they are the ones that take a life apart. Most people came in rating themselves severe across all three. After the protocol, the great majority report moving a long way up the scale, and a substantial group report landing back at normal.
Not everyone needed T3 or hGHA large group stopped after the fasting block and the refeed because they came out of the fast running hot, holding their weight and feeling great. That is the person who does not need the T3 cycle, and the group skewed toward the less severe cases: people whose metabolism had not yet been ground all the way down. The long-term sufferer who has done many fasts and seen many doctors is a different case: they run fast then T3 at least once to test the water, and wean off if it does little.
The stack does what the pieces cannotFor the people who go all the way, dry fasting, the T3 course and, where two cycles were not enough, hGH layered on top of the cycle produce something none of them produce on their own. That combination, not any single lever, is what the protocol is actually about.
Who Responds Best
This is the part worth your attention, and the part most protocols will not tell you. The high improvement rates are not spread evenly. They concentrate in a specific kind of patient, and if you recognise yourself in the profile below, the odds here are genuinely good.
The Profile That Responds
A low waking temperatureThe single most useful predictor. A basal temperature that sits consistently below the healthy band (roughly 97.7 to 98.6 F) means your metabolic engine is running cold. That is precisely the thing this protocol is built to restart, which is why temperature, not a lab reference range, is the dial the whole T3 phase is titrated to.
Clear signs of metabolic damageCold hands and feet, weight that will not move whatever you do, needing far more sleep than you ever used to, feeling wrecked for days after ordinary exertion, hair and skin that changed, a body running on fumes. This is the picture of a metabolism that stalled and never restarted after an infection or a long stretch of stress.
Willingness to run the whole sequenceThe people with the strongest outcomes are, almost without exception, the ones who did the preparation properly, held the fast, respected the refeed, and did not improvise the order. This protocol punishes shortcuts more than most.
Read the rest of this page through that filter. When people quote high improvement rates for the Scorch Protocol, those are, in practice, the rates for that group. If your temperature is normal and your metabolic markers look fine, this is a poorer fit for you, and I will say so rather than take you on.
The Cases That Were Taken On Anyway
Not everyone who works with me fits that profile. Some of the hardest cases I accepted precisely because they were hard: years spent largely bedbound, several overlapping diagnoses, damage that had been compounding for a decade before anyone named it.
I took those cases on with the situation stated plainly at the start. No projected outcome, no promise, and an honest this may not be enough. Some of those people improved further than anyone involved expected. Some did not. Both outcomes belong in an honest account of this work, and neither of them belongs inside a success rate.
If your case is one of the difficult ones, that is a reason to have the conversation, not a reason to skip it. It is also a reason to be suspicious of anyone who answers it with a number.
Who the Scorch Protocol Is Not For
A large number of people who came to me were assessed and advised not to attempt the Scorch Protocol. Only the people who were medically cleared and ready went ahead, and that screening is a real part of why the reports read the way they do. This is careful filtering, and you should factor it in before you read anything above as a promise.
Medical contraindicationsPeople with heart damage, type 1 diabetes, and a range of other serious conditions were turned away, because deep dry fasting would put them at real risk.
Sent to a T3 jump start firstThe order is fast first, always, with one exception. A few had already struggled through fasts, pushed on, kept getting worse and showed clear signs of metabolic trouble. They were put on a T3 course first as a jump start, and came back to the fast afterwards.
Mindset and readinessOthers were turned away because their headspace or mindset made dry fasting too dangerous to attempt. Fasting at this depth demands the right mental footing, and pushing someone who is not ready can do more harm than good.
Want to know whether you fit the profile?
Members run this protocol with me: a personalized refeed plan, your questions answered with your labs in context, and temperature tracking that tells you whether the metabolic picture is actually moving.
Self-reported, not verifiedEvery score came from the person living it, ticking a box on a form. There was no chart review, no independent assessor, and no lab confirmation. Some answers were certainly rosier than the reality behind them, and there is no way to go back and separate those out.
Who fills in a follow-up formPeople who feel better come back and say so. People who quietly gave up mostly do not. Every voluntary follow-up survey leans in the same direction, and this one is no exception.
No control groupNothing here separates the protocol from time, from placebo, or from the ten other things a highly motivated person changes in their life at the same moment. Treat it as a pattern worth investigating, not as proof.
The people who finish are the sickestThose who complete every phase tend to be much sicker and much more determined than average. That self-selection cuts both ways: it stacks the deck with hard cases, and it also stacks it with people who follow instructions exactly.
T3 availabilitySome people stopped simply because they could not get T3, especially slow-release T3. That is why chronic-illness.st exists, to help patients access the medications the protocol needs. (Previously chronic-illness.ca, the site has recently migrated.) Today my order is a prescription first, then chronic-illness.st for slow-release T3, then IdeaLabs Tyronene or Tyromix.
Other Tracked Symptoms
The questionnaires covered a wide range of chronic illness symptoms beyond the main three. These are the ones respondents reported measurable improvement in:
Core Tracked Symptoms
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Irritability
• Fluid retention
• Anxiety
• Shortness of Breath
• Depression
• Brain Fog
• Lightheaded | POTS
• Constipation
• Ringing in the ears
• Insomnia
• Allergies
• Elevated cholesterol
• Extreme Tiredness | PEM
• Sweating abnormalities
• Heat and/or cold intolerance
• Cold hands and feet turn blue
• Excessively tired after eating
• Heart Palpitations
• Frequently sick
Additional Improvements Observed
These were not on the tracked list, but people reported them often enough to be worth naming:
Lowered or eliminated recurrence of cold sores/herpes
The pattern here is consistent enough to be worth your attention, particularly if you recognised yourself in the profile above. What appears to do the work is the sequence, not any one piece of it:
10-Day Fasting Block (5 Dry + 5 Water): intense autophagy and stem cell activation during the dry phase, followed by a supercharged water fast that carries straight into the guided refeed
Proper Refeeding (stem cell proliferation and tissue regeneration)
T3 Therapy (metabolic reset and energy restoration, for those whose refeed shows the slowdown; a cycle is the fast, the refeed and the 30-day T3 course, with the next fast seven days after the course ends)
hGH Therapy (around the third cycle, on top of T3, when two cycles of fasting plus T3 were not enough: directs the released stem cells into tissue rebuilding), plus symptom-specific add-ons where needed
Run in that order, it addresses the root of the problem rather than the symptoms sitting on top of it. Run out of order, or run by someone it was never the right tool for, it does considerably less. Which is the whole reason this page talks about profiles instead of percentages.
Get your own customized refeed plan
Members build a personalized, day-by-day refeed plan: food choices and a calorie ramp sized to their own fast, plus when to layer in T3 and the rest of the protocol.
Ask Yannick directly. Members send their labs, symptoms, and questions and get a personal, reviewed answer, plus help sourcing medication and the full synthesized protocol behind every reply.
The information on this site describes a personal health protocol and is provided for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice. Consult a qualified physician before modifying your diet, fasting practice, or any medication regimen.