"I woke up about four and a half years ago now with the palms of my hands itching," Lawrence says. She ran her hands under ice-cold water, relieving the pain for a time. But the next day, the same itching sensation returned.
What began then was an unsettling experience of nearly losing her mind — Lawrence clawed welts across her skin as she tried to dull the need to scratch. Everywhere she turned for answers seemed to result in a dead end.
"It makes me itch just talking about it," she says.
According to CIU & You, the organization Lawrence works with, 1.5 million Americans suffer from CIU — most never learn what exactly the hell it even is. Often enough, doctors fall back on the "idiopathic" qualifier — there's no explanation for what's causing it.
"I know it's only 1.5 million Americans, and that doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems like in this day and age there ought to be a place for everyone to go," she says. Put simply, people who run into CIU just need to talk about it. Ideally, Lawrence says, they'll also get in touch with a dermatologist or an allergist to begin treatment.
Lawrence has been clear of symptoms for about three years now. "But it's chronic, so it's not like you're cured," she says.
