The Dr. Tyna Show
Stop Letting Your MRI Define You—The Truth About Pain & Healing | Dr. Danny Shapiro
Thu, 13 Mar 2025
EP. 198: In this episode, I sit down with my friend Dr. Danny Shapiro, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and former professional ballroom dancer, to challenge one of the biggest misconceptions in modern medicine: the idea that your MRI defines your pain and treatment options. We break down how an over-reliance on imaging leads to unnecessary fear and surgeries and why movement is often the real key to recovery. Dr. Shapiro takes a truly holistic approach, combining musculoskeletal health, hormones, nutrition, and strength training to help people heal. We explore everything from rehabilitative medicine and pain management to cutting-edge therapies like prolotherapy, PRP injections, and peptides. Plus, we discuss the profound impact of hormones on pain and why strength training is essential for recovery and resilience. Topics Discussed: Why you are not your MRI or imaging results Strength training and pain management Rehabilitative medicine and finding the root cause of pain The impact of hormones on recovery Prolotherapy, PRP injections, and peptide therapy Psychological impacts of imaging and diagnosis Preventing surgery through movement and strength Dance therapy and the power of daily movement On This Episode We Cover: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:05:18 - The Body Heals! You Are Not Your MRI 00:07:35 - Understanding MRI Imaging & X-Rays 00:12:10 - Rehabilitative Medicine & Strength Training 00:20:58 - Hip Replacements, Prolotherapy & Joint Health 00:30:57 - How Hormones Impact Pain & Recovery 00:34:16 - Root Causes of Pain: Hypothyroidism, Hypermobility & EDS 00:40:18 - The Psychological Impact of Imaging 00:48:34 - Peptides, PRP & Nervous System Healing 00:50:05 - Disc Herniations & Nerve Pain Recovery 01:10:07 - Strength Training for Pain Management 01:13:58 - How to Prevent Surgery Naturally 01:15:57 - The Power of Dance Therapy 01:20:41 - Where to find Dr. Danny Further Listening: EP. 156: Healing a Herniated Disc | Solo Episode Orthopedics Playlist Strength Training Playlist Sponsored By: Timeline Timeline is offering 10% off your order of Mitopure Go to timeline.com/drtyna. KION Use my link to save 20% at getkion.com/drtyna Lumen lumen.me/DRTYNA to get 20% off your Lumen. Puori Go to Puori.com/drtyna and use code DRTYNA to get 20% off LMNT Get your free Sample Pack with any LMNT purchase at drinkLMNT.com/drtyna Manukora Head to manukora.com/DRTYNA to get $25 off the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, Check Out Dr. Shapiro: Youtube Instagram Website https://www.myomelt.com/ Disclaimer: Information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only. This information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional, or any information contained on or in any product. Do not use the information provided in this podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing medication or other treatment. Always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before taking any medication or nutritional, herbal or other supplement, or using any treatment for a health problem. Information provided in this blog/podcast and the use of any products or services related to this podcast by you does not create a doctor-patient relationship between you and Dr. Tyna Moore. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent ANY disease.
Chapter 1: Why Should You Not Let Your MRI Define You?
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Chapter 2: What Are the Risks of Over-Reliance on Imaging?
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Dr. Danny Shapiro, thank you so much for coming on the Dr. Tina show today. I am so excited to talk to you. I've been a big fan of yours for, oh gosh, I don't even know how long. I remember when your Instagram was tiny and I found you and I have just loved watching you grow and all of your content. So thank you for coming on the show today.
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.
Yes, it's going to be so fun. So you and I agree on a lot, but there's one topic that I wanna dig into today, which is just this concept that you are not your imaging diagnosis. You are not your MRI, you are not your X-ray, you are not limited by those standards and the body heals and people just don't get it. So let's start there. Like, why are you so passionate about that as well?
And how did you get here on this journey?
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.
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.
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Chapter 3: How Can Strength Training Aid in Pain Management?
Chapter 4: What Role Do Hormones Play in Pain and Recovery?
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
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.
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.
It depends on who they're writing it for and what they're writing it for.
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.
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?
Well, and there's other things that I would share with my patients, which is number one, is it going to change the treatment plan any? You know, like are they even wanting, like I vehemently would oppose surgery personally. So I don't want to know. I actually have low back pain and I still don't want to know what the image says because I don't want to get that in my head.
I don't want those self-limiting beliefs going through my head of like, oh, my back looks terrible, so therefore... it must be the driver of the pain. When I know that there's other things driving my pain that I have influenced through hormones and through anti-inflammatory living and, you know, nutrition, et cetera.
So, and movement, most importantly, movement, which I know is that's your big thing. And mine too. I just think it's crazy. And then the other thing to consider is you often can't get the MRI approved as a clinician until they fail conservative care. And their version of conservative care is a cortisone injection.
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Chapter 5: How Can Movement Prevent Unnecessary Surgeries?
Chapter 6: What is the Importance of Understanding Root Causes of Pain?
Is it going to somebody like you who's going to rehabilitate? Like you'll get three different reports based on that. And so I really do think they write them to look as catastrophic as humanly possible so that it does justify the surgery if they think it's necessary. But it depends on... who's holding the hammer and what hammer are they holding, right?
We have different hammers, but I think you and I have similar hammers in that it's like active care. We're going to put the patient through an active care protocol.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 7: How Does Psychological Impact Affect Your Health?
You're so right. I mean, it often will. And often the pain generators are soft tissue in origin anyway. And so replacing the bony osseous joint isn't going to be the solution because it's the joint capsule and the ligamentous and tendinous tissue and everything. I mean, it's all the things that... are involved. You know, I won't even look at an MRI until I do my evaluation.
I was taught that by one of my mentors and it was great advice. So it sometimes would aggravate patients, but I'm like, I'm just not going to look at it until I actually ask you all the questions, do my own evaluation, do my own physical exam. And then I'm going to tell you what I think. And then we're going to look at the MRI and see if it adds up. But often, you're right.
I think also you have to think about and consider who's that MRI report going to, right? And do those people have any clue about... physical medicine, first of all. If they're an orthopedist, hopefully, obviously, they know how to evaluate joints.
I'm not saying they don't understand physical medicine, but they don't understand conservative care, physical rehabilitative medicine the way that you and I do. And I know we have different training, but still similarly, like we're getting the patient moving, we're getting the patient active, we're impacting the nervous system so that the tissues can move more freely.
Like there's all kinds of things going on here that I don't think that the person receiving the MRI report probably has an appreciation for. What do you think about that? Did you know that 80% of resolutions fail by February? You can beat the odds with Lumen and improve your health this year. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach.
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Chapter 8: What Holistic Approaches Can Enhance Recovery?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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