Hi

Hi everyone my name is Mark. I have been dealing with progtosigmoiditis for 4 years now and it has been pretty bad. I go through times when I can manage it but when flares get serious I am down and out. I manage my condition with cortifoam and prednisone. I had bad reactions to biologics so my gastroenterologist pulled the plug on those. I asked him if humira might work but he said they only give that to Crohn's patients so I guess that's that.

I did SCD for the first two years but my symptoms didn't improve a whole lot, then I tried GAPS, then FODMAPS, and now I am on some kind of paleo. I am thinking of going vegan because I read that animal foods are high in sulfur and that might make IBD worse. Right now I eat a lot of meat because it is a safe food. I can't do dairy, gluten, and a lot of things. This week I ate some honey and I couldn't tolerate it after years of it being ok? I am so confused.

The real reason I joined this forum is that this year when I flared it was very, very bad. They did some blood work and found out this week that I am newly infected with cytomegalovirus. They said I have both IgM and IgG antibodies and this means my body just got infected, so maybe that's why this flare is really bad. My GI doc said in order to know for sure they have to do a colonoscopy and take samples from my ulcers but it looks like I may have CMV colitis.

I'm really not sure what to do or how rare this is. Wikipedia says everyone has CMV and that the medications for CMV are very expensive at around $8,500 per month and I don't have insurance. Also they have very crazy side effects like maybe cancer (!!!) and they can cause DNA damage. So I don't know what to think?

I am hoping for some good advice from experienced people now that I've looked at Google already.