Dr. Danny Shapiro
Appearances
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I think every single human being should start dancing. I honestly think so. There's so much shoulders involved, necks involved, feet, knees. I think everybody should dance. It keeps your body so fluid.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
So like you said, chiropractic and PT, we actually do the same thing in terms of getting people moving and loading tissue and rehabbing someone, right? We may have different methods, but the goal ultimately is the same of getting people moving, getting people to reacclimate into activity in their life. And again, no shade at doctors, and this is not all doctors.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I know some doctors are phenomenal and truly like actually take the time to learn about physical rehab. But most doctors in your general setting, in your general, whether it's a hospital, even a private practice, so many osteopaths, surgeons, like they don't understand rehab whatsoever. Or their understanding of rehab is from a failed perspective.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
They know rehab is going to fail because traditional PT and traditional methods of chiropractors don't work. Like your run-of-the-mill PT and your run-of-the-mill chiro, you will see no changes. Or if you do, then your issue is that minor, and all it needed was a little bit of some kind of outside influence, and it can get better on its own.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But for so many people, like most of my patients, they've seen three, four, five other therapists, And I'm like, I'm the sixth one. And the final one, but the sixth one, right? And so, but that's healthcare.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
So, you know, either the osteopaths or the doctors that people go to, they, like you said, are not informed about physical rehab or they have such a low expectation of the physical rehab space that it almost like doesn't matter.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Like they know they're going to have to go for surgery anyway because, you know, rehab is going to fail and they're going to convince the patient that they need it because traditional rehab failed.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Thank you.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, and just getting better guidance. I mean, to that point where you just said, I have a patient whose PCP is,
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
literally like my patient wants them to like hey i my knee hurts um i i really want to be able to bike and swim and hike like i i really love being active um you know and she's she's in like you know middle age about 50s or so and the doctor looks at her and goes why like just chill like You know, you're getting older. Stop doing stuff. Like, what?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, my God. I told her immediately, get a new PCP. Get a new doctor. Forget it. You know, that's crazy. Like, oh, you're getting older? Do less. In what world would you need to do more, if anything? You know, look at those people. I just saw a video on, I love social media because you come across so many cool things.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I just saw someone, a video, a montage of like this 92-year-old holding herself up by his, like on the bars just with his arms. You know, this like 85-year-old woman doing dips, you know, on a bench. Like people can do phenomenal things as long as they don't stop moving. The more you stop moving, the more pain you'll have. Oh, it's so true. It's nuts.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Going back to the surgical route, I had a patient on the younger side, I think she was like late 30s, early 40s. She had a hip replacement and then five revision surgeries, five. And she was supposed to have a sixth one, a sixth one, a revision of the initial hip replacement at that young of an age. And like when she, when she, she couldn't do anything when she got to my office, like nothing.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And within a few weeks, like she canceled the revision surgery and she was, she was like, we got her back on track. She got back to her gym. She got back, she got her life back. But oh my God, a hip replacement and then five revisions. That's crazy.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And I've had so many people who've gotten joint replacements and still had the same pain or worse because their initial pain, like you said before, was never structural. It was tissue. It was a tissue issue. And that pain still remained. Now it just got operated on and it's even worse.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I actually, I really, really agree with you on the hormonal side of things because especially for men too, because men's testosterone definitely drops off as does their estrogen. But for women especially, especially around menopause age, that drop off in estrogen and testosterone as well is huge.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Like, it's super important to keep track of, and most women don't know to keep track of one, let alone both, and how to actually request from their doctors, like, if they have to get referred for blood work. Like, their doctors don't even do full profiles.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
oh yeah yeah and that that's exactly right like i've been checking my hormone levels everything since i was about 22. like i i want to know my i want to know my baselines like as early as i wish i could have done it earlier but you know whatever i have them now um i recommend to every single patient regardless of age to like hey if you're going for a blood panel like make it a full one right whether you're 20 30 40 doesn't matter like get
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Here are the tests that you should ask from your doctor to put on your referral. Get this, right? And then not only the hormone, but even markers like ApoB, apolipoprotein B. Nobody checks that. Why not? Why do you only check cholesterol and lipid profile? You need to check the ApoB as well. There's so many tests.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
that aren't tested, that is critical to someone's health and well-being, whether it's for pain relief or just overall longevity and preventative care. If your ApoB value is super high, your chance of a heart event is increased. Why don't we try to manage and drop it down? People don't check.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Well, I think that any cessation of movement leads to deterioration, whether it's through joint structures, whether it's through neural tension and then the provocation of pain, whether it's weakness and lack of support through the joints, especially if someone is prone to hypermobility.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Like I work with a very specific condition called EDS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which there are not very many competent providers even for that condition. And it's like there's so many different factors of what can happen. But, you know, this kind of like cascading effect where it's like if one domino falls, so many other dominoes fall with it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And if we can prevent that domino from falling or at least reverse the clock and kind of pick him back up, then again, that leads to that individual leading such just a better feeling life. And that's honestly, I think that's why we're in this medical field to begin with, right? Is to show people the right way of how to enhance their life from all aspects.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But it does all start with the retention and progression of movement. When you, I was recently at an event where Tony Robbins was speaking and he said a phrase that just like stamped itself into my brain. If you're not moving, you're dead.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. That's exactly right. In New York, PTs can't order MRIs, but I've advised patients to go get them. I can count on two hands over the last five years because if something truly is not making sense, like I referred a patient recently Because something about her knee pain wasn't making sense. And it wasn't what her doctor said. And what I was doing that was supposed to be working wasn't.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And so something became very fishy. So sure enough... Referred her out, got an MRI. Oh, turns out there's a fracture. Like right in her tibial plateau. Had another patient whose hip pain wasn't making sense. Like, you know, doctor said, oh, just go to PT. Like she came to me and like just something seemed off. So it went from the first session, second session, also something was in my head.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Just something seemed off. It's like, listen, you know what? Let's be safe. Go to your doctor, request a scan. Turns out there was a tumor.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Another one, there was a hernia, right? So make it make sense. But you're right. I don't... If everything makes sense, like I don't rely on the MRI at all for any part of my diagnostics or treatment plan at all.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I mean, that's right. You go searching for an answer. Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, exactly. That's the saying. You go looking for something and you'll find something, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Again, like I said earlier, I don't want to MRI my body. Although I do plan to get a full body MRI, like just to like, not for the sake of seeing what's wrong, just like... seeing my body, which would be kind of a cool experience. But again, I'm not looking for pain or looking for a problem. It's more just like, hey, let's check what's my internal system look like for funsies.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But I don't actually care.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. Like, oh my gosh, I have so many patients that like have arthritis in their hip and they come sit down, they go, they don't describe to me their pain. I have hip arthritis.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. I'm always a little bit like when someone starts talking like that, I'm a little bit like facetious, a little bit aggressive and say, and?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
What else is going on?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, my God. I can't with that phrase. That phrase is like nails on a chalkboard makes me want to put my head through a wall. I hate that phrase, bone on bone. It means nothing. Bones are on top of bones. Okay, so what? Your cartilage is wearing weight. Okay, so what? Like, oh, my God.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, that's exactly right. And again, in a way, I get it. In a way, I get where it's coming from because, like, people – We're in the medical field, and we're in the physical rehab space, and we're good at what we do. But the majority of people are not, and they hear this thing from their doctor, and it hits their ears, and the brain processes. The brain goes, oh, shit. I'm screwed.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
What do we do now? This explains everything. I have this pain. That's arthritis. I've heard arthritis from my parents. I've heard arthritis from the internet. That's it. My life is over. I can never go skateboarding. I can never go hiking. I can never go swimming. I can never take the Zumba class that I love so much. I can't.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And that's the, it's the I can't, the anxiety, the stress, the fear, all over and over again on an endless loop because nobody comes in and breaks that loop because everyone's saying the same stuff around in their outside world. That's all the external stimulus that they're receiving. And then their internal barriers to actually breaking free from that
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
It can't because, again, there's no positive voice telling them, like, hey, don't worry, we'll change this for you. We will make this so that it doesn't matter. There's no one that says that to them.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. And worst comes to worst, you know, put a little BPC in there and it's all good.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
You know, peptides, like this is, I think peptides is going to be the new frontier of medicine. I really firmly believe it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And did you hear how there's new versions of peptides that can regrow parts of your nervous system back? People with dementia and Alzheimer's, people who have had strokes or spinal cord injuries, it can help the nerves to regrow. Like I just heard this recently that they're like, they're trying to perfect it in somehow, some way.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
but my god that's incredible um i mean vpc in itself is mind-blowing and crazy i heard uh funnily enough um a doctor was she fractured her wrist as well i don't remember where it was is probably probably also a fuchsia injury um and she went to her hand surgeon uh friend and the hand search was like hey that this is really bad it's displaced like You know, we should operate on that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And then she goes back and she does start doing BPC injections. And then I think it was like a month later, it goes back to the hand surgeon friend and they retake the x-ray. And he goes, what the hell did you do? How is this? Like, there's nothing there. Like it was as if it was never broken.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, my God. We can talk about this all day. I would say, like, if I had to break down percentages in my office of, like, who I see, I'd say, like, 45-ish percent or so of the patients that come through my clinic are disc herniation or stenosis patients. The next is like knee arthritis or knee meniscus tears. And then the other ones is like hip arthritis and then like shoulders.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Thank you so much, Dr. Tina. I'm really excited to be here with you. I know we're going to dive into a lot of things, a lot of really interesting topics, a lot of things that people need to hear and understand and verifying a lot of just misconceptions in the medical field. So I'm really excited to dive in and very thankful to be here with you.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But oh my gosh, there's so much old outdated medicine because doctors are still telling them, hey, you'll have this problem for the rest of your life. Yeah, it's crazy. then that doctor even needs to retire or update the research because that's not true. Discrimination, I mentioned earlier, I had a discrimination eight years ago. That took me, I got mine, I know exactly the moment it happened.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I was doing bent over rows with 135 pounds and I was my last set, my last few reps and then all of a sudden I hear a pop. I was in Canada at the time and We're on a family vacation, and at that moment, there's nothing that happened. I had the pop. I was like, okay, that was weird. I dropped away instantly and stopped.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
The next day, early in the morning, we were all driving back from Canada back to New York. We got into the garage of the home, and I went to go get out of the car, and I dropped to the floor.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
That's awful. It was horrible. But long story short, fast forward to today, I'm doing 285 in the bent-over rows. More than double the weight of what caused my initial disc herniation. I'm dancing, I'm moving, I'm grooving. My overhead press for military press with the barbell is 225. Wow. Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
No, it does. It's exactly right. And actually, what happens is, it's funny, I was actually just prepping a piece of very lengthy content about this because, like, as you know, right, when we have a disc herniation, it interrupts nerve flow, right? So, you know, if we're talking about, say, L4, L5, or L5, S1, these are, like, the most common.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
To have a lumbar, you know, disc herniation, also, like, not uncommon, but the most common ones are usually around L4, L5, L5, S1. For example, that's the two that my brother had, and his was really bad.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But the point is that every disc herniation interrupts the nerve flow as it goes down through your hip, as it goes down through your thigh, as it goes down through your calf and foot, and all the muscles that receive the input from that nerve are impacted. And if you don't do anything about them, they start to atrophy and get weaker and become more unstable.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And so many times when people have continuous pain five years post initial disc herniation, or at least the realization of a disc herniation, right? Because again, you won't know until you check and who knows how long that's been brewing there. So let's just say five years, like the example you gave, people don't realize that the pain that they're probably feeling is from two things.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
One, from the fact that they haven't moved, twisted, or bent their spine in five years because the fear of God was put into them to avoid it at all costs. And I love the fact that doctors say don't lift anything more than 10 pounds. And I'm like, oh, my God. I got a crazy story for you after this.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And then the second thing is like the muscles that were impacted by that nerve that was, again, had the interruption of a nerve flow signal, you never rebuilt those back. So that's what's causing the problem, between the lack of mobility and strength through the actual spine and all the muscles that support it, as well as all the muscles that were impacted by it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And that's why usually most people have multi-location pain. So it's not just in your back, but it's also in your hip and your knee, possibly on the other side too, because of compensations. It's nuts. And this is what I go through with all the patients who come to me with chronic pain, from an initial disc herniation finding. That's what it is every single time. It is never the disc herniation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
To start off, I mean, what really piqued my curiosity about the human body and all the things that it's truly capable of, I used to be a professional ballroom dancer for 16 years. I was a United States ballroom champion. I was a world competitor. I was a United States representative across the globe since the age of 10.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, so I had a patient. He was in his mid-20s when we started working together. And this guy was a dancer, just like I was. He danced every day, competed, and he had multiple disc herniations through his cervical spine, thoracic spine, and lumbar spine. He had pain all through his neck, through his shoulders, through his arms, through his back. Pain was pretty much everywhere.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
He was in a lot of trouble. And he stopped competing, and he still taught and stuff because that was part of his job. That was his livelihood. But his doctors also told him, hey, you'll never be able to compete again. Again, mid-20s.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, really terrible. Yeah. Don't lift anything 10, 15 pounds over your head. Don't do it. You're going to maim yourself even worse. And just accept that this is going to be your life. You know, you can live on six apples a day. And this is how you should go forward. And I got to say, fast forward to today. He is actively competing all the time. He is teaching all the time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
His pain is much better modulated and more under control. He is definitely lifting more than 10, 15 pounds over his head, considering he sometimes holds bodies.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But this was what he was told as someone in his 20s. Like in what world is this okay? And in what world is this not malpractice?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And the human body, moving it for hours on end, there's no off season for dancing. So you're in it. And the body is incredibly fascinating. It can do things that people couldn't even imagine. And it's really, really extraordinary. And we don't even fully understand it yet.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, I love talking about it because you're right. Like we as humans, we tend to move in a unilateral, like just a very forward and back manner. Every lift is forward and back. Right. You push or pull. Right. Squat. I mean, listen, it's up or down. Right. But it's still very one dimensional. And.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
we are multi-dimensional humans i i describe it to my patients as such like we we can do one dimensional movements we can do two dimensional movements and three dimensional movements through our spine right one dimension is just forward back two dimensions is forward and let's say to the side and three dimensions forward side with rotation and we our bodies need to be acclimated to that and that is something that i took over from the dancing world
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Because in dancing, your spine is twisting and bending and flexing and extending. Through all imaginable possible ranges of motion that your spine can do, ballroom dancing gets done, all of it. And when I entered the rehab space, I was like, why is nobody doing it? Why are people doing clamshells, glute bridges? and like hamstring stretches. And that is the recipe for pain relief in most offices.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I was like, what is this nonsense? Their spine is supposed to bend. It's supposed to do stuff. What is this craziness? Your erector muscle groups, I mean, your... All these muscles that come from your tail, like right above your tailbone, line of spine. Some of them go up into your neck. Some of them go into your mid-back, thoracic spine.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Some of them go underneath your shoulder blades, along your rib cage. These muscles that support us, that literally support every spinal segment, extends, rotates, and side bends. Right? Either some or all of those motions, but at least two or three out of them. And we don't do that. Yep. And if our body is designed to do X, we must do X. Anything short of X will lead to problems. Yep.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And so that really piqued my interest in physical medicine, what really just kind of catapulted me into the physical therapy realm, essentially. And as I got deeper and deeper into this field, I realized there's a lot of misconceptions, especially when it comes to imaging.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
A thousand percent. Same as the knee, right? Same as the shoulder. The shoulder is the most mobile joint in the entire body. Nothing can do what the shoulder can do. And yet, all we do is we live in this 90-degree realm where we don't really reach over our head unless we're reaching for something in an upper cupboard, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But when's the last time someone actually rotated their shoulder around and behind them and rotated their, you know, again, this is very dancey motions, right? But this is all things that the shoulder can do, but nobody does it. Yeah, and that's why people who have shoulder pain can't lift their arms past 90 degrees for the past three years because of tremendous pain.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
They don't include that rotation in. They don't activate the rotation. All those muscles, the rotator cuff and other ones that are outside the rotator cuff clamp it all down. Right. But that's why I love lateral flexion and rotation because it opens things up beautifully. It is one of the biggest pain like immediate pain eliminators.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
When people come to me, even I had someone who had 30 years of low back pain. We dropped it by 75 percent within 45 minutes just by including side flexion and rotation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
There we go.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And people who are getting MRI results and x-ray results saying that they have arthritis, they need hip replacements or joint replacements so that they have labral tears, that they have to get laminectomies and all these different kinds of things, which is crazy because those people who are told these things, who have limitations, who have pain, can then go on without the surgery to get rid of pain entirely.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, my God. Couldn't be farther from the truth. And, you know, in addition to that, and you've probably noticed this as well from pretty much, I think, 100% of the moves I've ever shown online is that not only does it include all these ranges of motion that the body is designed to do, but there's also no passive stretching. Even when you feel a stretch, it's actually active.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Because even if you're side bending to the side, you're not leaning on something and reaching for it. Your muscles are stretching and actively contracting to hold that position and expand like that. I don't believe much in passive. There's very few instances when I will have a patient passively stretch, like lean on something and reach for something or grab their knee and pull it towards them.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Everything that I typically give my patients, I'd say 99.9% of the time is all active stretching or active activation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
because those two again that's that goes hand in hand with using the body forcing the body to use its own leverage and fight against itself because that's how strength is built right if you want to build strength you gotta struggle through some weight you gotta struggle through some load you gotta struggle through the the actual contraction the body is the same way even if you're just using your own body weight there's so many ways to leverage your own body weight
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I've had guys, huge muscle, like bodybuilders come in and I'll have them do something seemingly simple, like a rotated side bend. Oh, that's one of my favorites. And then once they go down, I'll put my finger on their upper elbow and I'll say, okay, my little finger, okay? I'll put my pinky against me. They can't.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
They can't come out of it. Pinky pressure. I'm a big boy, but pinky pressure. Right. Can't do it. Right. Body can't produce enough force to go that way. It's not used to doing that. Right. So we've got to build all this stuff up. And the way to do is all through mostly, again, active. You can do some passive. If you're super sensitive, some passive movements might be good.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But all those juicy, active stretch activations are so good.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And then, okay, well, hey, you may have arthritis, but what if the arthritis is not actually causing you the problem? Right.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. Oh, gosh. I mean, what would save my back when I had my disc herniation? I got to say, like, when I went down and I couldn't sit, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't walk. Like, everything was misery. And in my mind, it didn't compute of, like, I went from this top-tier athlete. Like, how can I be at the top of my game at 22 years old Like, I've never been injured before.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Like, my father was a podiatrist and a very functional, you know, medicine health kind of guy. So, like, from the age of when I could walk, you know, checking my lineups, making sure I'm strong, making sure I'm well balanced. And, like, this is the real first pain episode of my life.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And to me, in my brain, it could not compute how can I be – how can I have been so athletic and so strong and never injured and now I can't do anything? No, I do not accept this. I'm going to start moving my ass. Right? M-Y-A, move your ass.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And getting people's brains to flip and people who thought that that's it, they have to cut their original body piece of it out to replace it with other material because that's what their doctor says, even though that's not really the case because they don't know any other option. Like that to me, just it blows my mind every time I have this conversation with somebody.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And sure enough, like, did I have really rough moments? You know, there was one time I went to the gym where I thought I was, I was getting better and things were starting to finally open up and I was feeling looser. I went to go do pull-ups. I tell this to my patients who come to me with disc herniations all the time. I went to go do pull-ups. I let go. I was good during the pull-up. I let go.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
The moment my foot touched the ground, boom, crumbled down to the floor. I have to crawl out of the gym. We start from scratch. There were moments where it took 20 minutes to get into my car. But did that stop me from loading? No. I found the moves, the things that caused me the discomfort. I fought through it, and that's how I got out of it.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And within eight months from the initial disc herniation, I was on stage for a bodybuilding competition.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
It's really, yeah, like that, especially with back surgery. I recently launched an online movement platform because there are so many, I kept getting so many messages, thousands of messages like, hey, you know, because I'm only licensed to work with people in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. But people kept messaging from all over the world like, hey, I want to work with you.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I know you can't legally do it. I want to work with you. Give me something. So I was like, all right, give me some time. I'll make something. So I created this whole online app platform. It's awesome. And one of the members that are currently in it right now, she's had spinal fusion surgery. from like, I think it was her lower, mid-lower thoracic spine down to her L4.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And she was a runner all her life. And her doctor wanted to operate and fuse the next segment, L4-L5. And her goal was to run the Boston Marathon in April. Now, she started in my platform on my app a month ago and horrible pain, could not run. One month later, through this platform, this past weekend, she just ran her first 13.1 miles.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, it's going to blow your mind.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Maybe it'll be an add-on for the future. Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I think every single human being should start dancing. I honestly think so. Even just taking a salsa or bachata class, that's already... If you want to keep it low profile and chill, that's the thing to try because there's still all that hip movement, all that spine movement, even just the follow...
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
uh the lead and follow of uh you know when you're doing if you're doing partner work there's so much shoulders involved necks involved feet knees and oh my god it's i think everybody should dance it keeps your body so fluid um it's always funny you know when i go to uh when i go to a salsa club i'm you know one of the only white people to know how to dance and you're and you're buff
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, a big white boy just dancing around. And I've had, every time I've gone, I've had people who were locals of the club. They always go to the salsa club. They're regulars. They come up to me and they're like, how? Where? How do you know how to dance like us? I'm like, I love you guys. I love this music. I love this style. I love this dance.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Dancing is such a great way to move your body and such a great soul expression. And it really is something. I can't believe I was bullied as a kid because of it. And to the point where I almost quit. I almost quit. I almost quit. But thank God I didn't.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
That's great. You know how to have a good time. You know how to let loose. I've been in a grocery store before, too, where I was dancing with hummus, you know? So what? You know, some Ed Sheeran is on, just bopping around, you know, Shape of You is on, you know, and suddenly the hummus looks like it wants a dance partner, right?
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah. I try to embarrass my girlfriend as much as I can. Does she a dancer? Does she dance with you? No, she used to do rhythmic gymnastics, which is, like, she's very fit. She goes to the gym all the time. Since she stopped doing that, she transferred her love of, like, being fit to working out. And she's like, oh, why don't you ever teach me how to dance? Because she's in PA school.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I'm constantly, you know, I'm working, like, 16 hours a day. And, like, she just, she's like, oh, we should learn how to dance. I have some special plan for her. Good.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Hey, that's part of the reason I keep dancing. I'm hoping to inspire some people to dance. And if that big boy can do it, then so can I, right?
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Awesome. So you can find me on Instagram. That's my main platform at Official Danny Shapiro or on Facebook at Project Physical Therapy, which is the name of my clinic. And if you are from New York, New Jersey or Florida and you want to work with me, you can go on Project Physical Therapy dot com and get a free 30 minute consultation.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
We can talk about what's going on and fix you up, make you feel phenomenal. And so you can dance and move around like me. And if you'd like to, yeah, if you'd like to check out my movement platform and see where, you know, people are joining from literally all over the world. I have people in Europe, I have people in Australia and Austria, across the country in the US and Canada.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And they're finally finding results and actual happiness to finally see progress. People have been paying for decades, tried everything and just finally seeing progress. You can go to mymelt.com slash win. That's M-Y-O-M-E-L-T. M-E-L-T dot com. And you can even get a free two-week trial to see what it's all about.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
We do weekly coaching calls where I show up every single week to motivate, pump you up, and tell you how it is, answer questions that you may have. We have a giant community, programs for every part of the body that cover just about every single issue, and it's phenomenal.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Tina. And I just want to, I kind of want to like end it on a very important note that I want people to understand, like just a couple of statistics real quick. Yeah. About from a study from 2023, there's about 51.6 million people, about 21% of the US population who have chronic pain.
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Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Of those people, 69% say that it limits their ability to actually do their job and to work. And about 56% of people have associated anxiety and depression. I can blanket assume that we can cut that number by about 50% minimum, minimum, if we de-feared movement.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
if we reintroduced load as something that's healthy and necessary, if we regulated how people live their lives day to day, and this can cover not only movement, but nutrition, hydration, proper adequate supplementation, if that's something that's necessary, there are so many changes that we can make to this number. Because this impacts millions of people, and this number is increasing every year.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
So people can just accept that, hey, movement might just be the answer. That, hey, my body is capable of healing. My body can do so much more. We can cut this number in half, at least half. And I'm on a mission to cure the world. And I hope that people start moving because it's time that we end pain.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh, yes. Motion is motion and brings all of the commotion.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Oh yeah, big time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Absolutely. We'll be happy to be here anytime. Thank you so much, Dr. Tina.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
I mean, I agree. I absolutely, absolutely agree. And actually, you mentioned middle age. You can actually start MRIing people after the age of about 26, 27, 28 years old.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
And for most of those people, you will find some version of arthritis, some version of a disc herniation, some version of a meniscus tear, especially for active individuals or people who are active in their early life and continue to be active. These are not weird things. If you MRI my body right now, I am sure Because I've had it this pretty much eight years ago.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
But I'm sure that you'll find some things that I don't want to know about because they don't really matter because I don't have pain because I'm great. I'm awesome. But the point is that that's absolutely right. And I think that insurance companies actually have a lot to do with this because...
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
If you can identify a problem through imaging and then your doctor says, oh, we got to do something about this. I wonder, oh, yeah, insurance pays for this. Okay, cool. Let's recommend this procedure. Let's recommend this injection. Let's recommend X, Y, and Z. And I think that
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Health insurance companies, while great for things like, you know, if you have a heart attack, like emergency services, it can be very helpful. But when it comes to physical medicine and physical rehab, I think it really muddies the waters in terms of quality of care and attention to detail and the ability for a provider to really provide.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
proper guidance and proper advice, especially when it comes to imaging and especially that something like an MRI, you can have one MRI and 10 doctors look at an MRI and give you 10 different reports.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Absolutely. That is crazy. For the MRI to be the golden standard of imaging and yet have so many different variations based on that imaging, based on who's looking at it, who has more experience looking at it, That to me is crazy.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
It's like you got to double check everything, triple check everything, verify everything and make sure that you really explore every avenue possible to make sure that like if someone's pushing surgery on you, do you really need surgery or can you bypass that option?
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because that is usually the thing that does it. I have a guy write like literally brand new patient came into my office three days ago and he showed me his MRI and I was looking at it and he goes, okay, it's like, he didn't give me any information yet. I looked at him like, She looks like a great MRI. Like, okay, we got some joint swelling.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Okay, there's a little labral tear. There's mild arthritis. Okay, but this MRI looks amazing. What did your doctor say? He goes, yeah, my doctor recommended I get ready for a hip replacement. I'm like, what? Okay, listen, I didn't do the evaluation. Let me do the evaluation, and I'll tell you my thoughts. So I do the evaluation 30 minutes in.
The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
All the things that cause him pain, we got 30 minutes into the appointment, all of them are gone. All of them are gone. And I'm like, oh my God, what hip replacement are we even talking about? From the paper? Is your doctor crazy? He wants to ruin your life. That's what's going to happen. If you get the surgery, it will ruin your life.