My uncle has recently been diagnosed with HIV and severe Crohns disease. There are no case studies here that have those two medical problems and I was wondering if you could help with how you would treat this. His CD4 count is 684 and his viral load is around 67,000. If you could give some advice that would be great. Thanks.

There are several anecdotal cases in the literature that describe patients with Crohn's disease subsequently becoming infected with HIV. Interestingly some of those patients experienced remission of their Crohn's disease in the presence of HIV. Some died of AIDS associated illnesses, with their Crohn's in remission. People have theorized that CD4 cell activation brought on by HIV infection contributed to this remission. Most of these cases were before the advent of HAART (highly active antiretroviral therapy) for HIV. Given his CD4 count, his immune system is in pretty good shape. he does not need HIV therapy at this point. But his viral load is sufficiently high, that HIV treatment is probably in the cards in the future.