Millions of Americans remember actress Vicki Lawrence for the many characters she played on The Carol Burnett Show, and the spin-off, Mama’s Family. They may also know her as a recording artist and the host of her own talk show back in the 1990s.
Now, Lawrence has become the public face of a campaign to bring attention and empathy for people suffering from a skin condition called Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria, or CIU.
It's a condition that she’s dealt with in the past. Lawrence originally thought she was having an allergic reaction. What at first looked like just a few hives spread across her body, but when she went to the doctor, she was diagnosed with CIU.
"I went home and of course started looking on the web for answers, and there weren't a lot. There were people that were chatting about it, but they were just mostly asking questions and every bit as frustrated as I was," says Lawrence.
Because of this dearth of information, Lawrence decided to team up with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America to launch a website to help those afflicted with CIU.
"My mission is to let people know how I went through it and just to make them feel better about taking charge of it themselves, knowing that there are ways to manage the condition," she says.
