Lidia Carr

Fiercely Loyal; Pain Advocate Breast Cancer Survivor struggling with severe Chronic Pain!Pain Management is my Life! Post Mastectomy Pain Syndrome is HELL

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

I am a warrior and battled so hard - you can’t even imagine it all. And yet I got up and hid my pain from others - and it was the hardest job I’ve ever done! Chronic pain kills your soul.
Not one human can relate to one’s suffering until you’ve walked the same shoes

[Elisabeth Potter MD @EPotterMD]

I have seen this same story over and over again this week.

Women with Medicare and TRICARE being told they are not candidates for DIEP flap reconstruction.

And it’s not true.

They are candidates.

But the reimbursement is so low that some surgeons don’t want to do the surgery or can’t afford to.

That is a system problem.

But telling a patient they are not a candidate when they are is not the answer.

If you’re a patient with Medicare or TRICARE, you need to ask directly: Is reimbursement affecting your recommendation?

You deserve the truth about your body and your options.

And if the system is broken, then we fix the system.

We don’t pass that cost onto patients.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

I was last one in surgery with 30 day residency training that disabled me for life. My primary surgeons lied about everything.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@CMerandi Correct! It’s a damn lie ! What a despicable article to write that is a complete lie! I’m suffering in hell with severe pain. It’s not mind over matter. It’s extensive nerve damage due to cancer surgery and surgeons doing assembly line surgeries with breast cancer? 7

[Elisabeth Potter MD @EPotterMD]

We are changing healthcare. And when you change healthcare, you change the world.

This week on Capitol Hill, I stood alongside healthcare workers, advocates, lawmakers, and organizations who are refusing to accept that burnout, fear, retaliation, and silence are just “part of the job.”

Last year, I spoke up after being pulled out of surgery by an insurance company and pressured to justify care for a patient with breast cancer.

I told the truth about what happened and the system retaliated.

What I expected was conversation. Collaboration. A desire to make things better.

Instead, I was threatened, pressured to stay quiet, and forced to confront just how uncomfortable the healthcare system becomes when healthcare workers speak honestly about what patients and providers are experiencing.

But then something powerful happened.

@wearfigs stepped up for me.

They helped protect my ability to keep speaking, keep advocating, and keep my practice open when things became incredibly difficult. And now, together, we are helping push forward legislation like the SPEAK FREE Act so healthcare workers can speak truthfully about patient safety, workforce safety, and harmful system issues without fear of retaliation.

This week we also advocated for:
• Funding for the Dr. Lorna Breen Act supporting healthcare worker mental health
• The Healthcare is Human Act supporting healthcare workers serving in shortage areas
• A future where healthcare workers are empowered to tell the truth and help fix the systems hurting patients and providers alike

And I want to say this clearly: Healthcare workers speaking honestly about broken systems should never be treated as the problem.

Telling the truth is how we begin fixing what is broken.

Thank you to every healthcare worker who continues showing up. Thank you to every patient who trusted us with their stories. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to keep speaking this past year. Thank you to Noah Wyle for using your platform with integrity and purpose. And thank you to FIGS for not just talking about advocacy, but actively stepping into the arena with us.

[Elisabeth Potter MD @EPotterMD]

There are 22 million healthcare workers in America.

And I think we just realized how powerful we could become if we stopped letting ourselves stay divided.

Something happened in DC this week that was bigger than politics, bigger than titles, and bigger than any one specialty.

For the first time in a long time, I sat in rooms with nurses, techs, therapists, physicians, and healthcare workers across every part of medicine, and nobody cared what letters were behind our names.

We were united by the same reality: The healthcare system is failing both patients and the people trying to care for them.

For years, healthcare workers have been separated into categories, hierarchies, societies, and specialties. But sitting together this week, it became impossible not to ask the question:

Why have we been kept so separate?

Because divided people are easier to silence and control.

But there are 22 million of us.

Twenty two million people who see what is happening inside hospitals, clinics, operating rooms, and patient rooms every single day.

You can call me whatever you want, but I’m not showing up as “just” a doctor anymore. I’m showing up as a healthcare worker, proud to stand alongside my colleagues at every stage of healthcare.

I’m done asking permission to advocate for patients and for the future of healthcare. We know these problems because we are the ones living them.

And when healthcare workers unite instead of staying divided, we become something incredibly powerful.

Thank you @wearfigs for bringing healthcare workers together in DC this week and helping spark conversations and advocacy that felt bigger than any one title or profession.

This is how we change healthcare.

Together.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

This right here!! Damn you health insurance companies. This surgeon stood up ! And wanted her patient kicked out of hospital and wasn’t even awake yet from her mastectomy , cancer patient!

[Jonelle Elgaway @JonelleElgaway]

Understanding the Difference Between Chronic Pain and Intractable Pain
#ChronicPain #IntractablePain #opioids #pain #cpps

https://t.co/Hj14RBDD9f

[Claudia A. Merandi @CMerandi]

If pain reprocessing therapy helps your chronic intractable pain, you probably don’t have chronic intractable pain

Enough with the gimmicks

[Paul Ingraham (PainScience.com) @PainSci]

Pain isn’t actually “mild” if it never stops. Persistence can turn a small pain into a nightmare. Duration MULTIPLIES the intensity! But we try to quantify #chronicpain intensity without duration? 🤦🏻‍♂️

https://t.co/H6ORyGlIRB

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@CMerandi @joerogan Living with intractable pain and millions who suffer horrendously with the most grotesque pain. The Government and US states are killing pain patients.

[Chad D. Kollas, MD (he/him) @ChadDKollas]

@ibdgirl76 No, not “many” patients have Opioid-Induced Hyperalgesia. It has never been proven to exist in humans and - at most -is a rare phenomenon. PROP anti-opioid zealots politically pressured FDA into including it on opioid labeling without sufficient evidence of its existence.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@Delta To only have 1 backup strategy of your technology systems ! That’s what we call budget cuts on capital equipment protection.

You buzzards refused extra protection on your database systems. Too cheap to pay ! Capital equipment budgets cuts and here you are “screwed”

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@WESH He plays in his own sandbox and doesn’t care about anyone except himself. Evil is an understatement. This man is insane! Not my president !

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@TxRdHdinAz @CMerandi Cymbalta almost caused me a nervous breakdown. My physical therapist noticed I was unwell and it was the cymbalta that did horrible things and caused severe depression almost to a breakdown. Got off this med and recovered from this horrible experience.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@Just_Natalie_K @CMerandi I lost my mother too. And she was in Hospice in her home. And they would provide the prescription she needed I would give her to help her until her dying day. Walgreens and CVS , etc all told me we don’t have these kind of drugs. Hospice was the only way and a blessing.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

It’s despicable that today’s patients who are in horrific pain and dying are refused proper pain control #CDC #FDA

[Claudia A. Merandi @CMerandi]

Remember how people with cancer were to be exempt from the CDC guidelines?

Well, they’re not

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

@andrewcuomo @Mkennedycuomo Beautiful. Such a lovely day and memories to cherish always. Congratulations. What a beautiful family.

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

Check out Ruby-Breast Cancer Survivor 💕's video! #TikTok https://t.co/ECNmHXkx01

[Lidia Carr @LidiaCarr1960]

TRUTH. Lost 5 young friends of my daughters who died of illicit fentanyl in 1 year!!!! It’s not the chronic pained ! It’s the cartel selling shit that kills young and old adults. Cause their pain meds have been cut off! This is America?

[Chad D. Kollas, MD (he/him) @ChadDKollas]

It’s almost as though embracing a prohibitionist, law enforcement approach to a medical problem (substance use disorders) led users to more deadly drugs… 🤔

If only we had some inkling of a concept that foresaw such a trend.
#IronLawOfProhibition

Or if we actually let trained medical professionals address SUD, instead of a criminal, punitive approach that culminates in incarceration or creates a poisoned illicit drug supply that kills PWUD via polysubstance overdoses.
#DrugOverdoseCrisis

[Chad D. Kollas, MD (he/him) @ChadDKollas]

My interview with Dr. Bobby Mukkamala for the @AmerMedicalAssn “Opioid Overdose Epidemic Podcast Series” is now posted for listeners!
#hapc #hpm #PainCare #moud #BalancedOpioidPolicy

https://t.co/54PP1eMO1L