"Mama" Vicki Lawrence shares struggle with chronic hives

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Ever since she first appeared on the "Carol Burnett Show" at age 18, Vicki Lawrence has had us laughing.

She still gets them from audiences in her current touring show, "Vicki Lawrence and Mama, a 2-woman Show."

But on Thursday, she was at 6abc with a more serious campaign, raising awareness about a form of chronic hives called Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria, C.I.U., something which hit her out of the blue 4 years ago.

"It started for me literally with my hands itching. I said to my husband - you gotta go buy a lottery ticket, because clearly, we're coming into a lot of money tonight," Lawrence said with a big smile.

"And I dunked my hands in ice water, and it went away. But the next day, I wake up like groundhog day, and my hands are itching again," she continued.

She tried to put the itching out of her mind by taking her dogs for a walk.

"By the time I got home from walking the dogs, literally, I'd clawed welts all over my body," she said.

Lawrence and her allergist tried to figure out what triggered those welts.

"Your immediate thought is I'm doing something wrong - changed my detergent, or I'm using a new cosmetic, or I've eaten something weird. and in many cases, that's the case," she said.

And she got a rafter of advice from well-meaning friends on how to solve the problem.

But after 6 weeks, the hives were still there, and Lawrence's allergist declared the case "chronic."

Treatment finally brought the hives under control. They flared once 6 months later, but have been out of sight since.

Now she wants to help the 1.5 million other people with C.I.U.

Lawrence has partnered with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which has developed a website CIU and You to serve as a resource for sufferers.

when she was diagnosed, there was no place for information, sharing, or advocacy on C.I.U.

"There were a lot of people with questions," says Lawrence. "But not a lot out there."

She hopes people with C.I.U. will come to the site to check their symptoms, download materials, and share their experiences.

She says patients are are urged to take pictures to show their doctors, because, on appointment day, "Maybe the hives won't be there that day."

With her hives under control, Lawrence is focusing on her touring show and the DVD-release of the first 5 years of the "Carol Burnett Show."

"We're gonna get together next week for some new features for the DVDs," she says.

"That'll be interesting to see, we did some fun stuff in the very beginning, and we're going to shoot it at Studio 33, where we did all those shows," she reminisces.

Lawrence admits she was sometimes in awe of the special cast she worked with.

"I'd find myself standing by Harvey Korman and Carol Burnett, and you know, you'd see the audience behind them, and I would literally have to snap myself out of it, and say OK, you've got a line coming up!"