Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 06/98) - Matt Dawe knows what it's like to hit rock bottom but he never suspected what would help him soar back to health.

The fibromyalgia survivor used the phrase "rock bottom" repeatedly to describe the condition's smothering effect on some of the prime years of his 21-year-old life.

Now, he says, natural herbs are doing what western medicine could not.

"I can't see it being anything else. I've tried everything else. He told me exactly what was going to happen and of course I didn't believe in it and I didn't think it was going to happen this fast. And it happened."

In August 1994, just before his Grade 12 year, doctors diagnosed the life-long Yellowknifer with mononucleosis, forcing him to miss six months of school and quit a job at the Bata shoe store.

Still severely lethargic two years later, Dawe was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a disease with no known cause or cure.

"I couldn't even lift a shoe box above my head," Dawe said Friday after giving a brief talk to nurses at the NWT Registered Nurses Association biennial conference in Yellowknife.

Dawe's weight fluctuated wildly between 1994 and 1997, but has remained constant since 1997.

That is when Dawe met Dan O'Neill, who owns the natural health store Sundance Health.

O'Neill suggested Dawe take proenzi 99 and spirulina twice a day.

Proenzi 99 includes the mineral chromium, said to spur weight loss. It also includes ginseng and bee pollen for energy and green tea to deoxidize the body.

Spirulina is a strong anti-oxidant which helps digestion and "tones you down," Dawe said.

Combined, they have given Dawe a new lease on life and he now looks to the future with optimism, suggesting he may go to university next year.

Fibromyalgia is still poorly understood, and the source of misunderstanding for many.

The disease causes severe fatigue, usually not quite as severe or as long-lasting as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which results in continuous pain for months on end. Fibromyalgia-based fatigue often goes on for days at a time.

Sleep is disrupted because growth-hormone release is inhibited.

A constant attack of disrupted chemical in the brain causes an abundance of mixed messages and sensory overload. This plus sleep deprivation exacerbates fatigue.

There is a support group in the city.