Volleyball has shaped many aspects of Matt Shea’s life as both a player and a coach. Matt is a former collegiate assistant coach who now coaches at the high school and club level and plays competitively.
However, a rare medical condition put his whole life — including volleyball — on hold for two years. As he dealt with painful nerve symptoms throughout his body, Matt had to stop working, coaching, and playing. He became couchbound, dealing with shooting pains and seized muscles.
After beginning intravenous treatments that helped lessen his symptoms, Matt started seeing Hashim Ahmed, DPT, physical therapist, UPMC Rehabilitation Institute: Wexford, Village at Pine.
Since he started working with Hashim in May 2024, Matt has resumed coaching and hopes to resume playing competitively. He credits Hashim and his staff for helping him get there.
“I don’t think I could have been in better hands,” says Matt, 39, of Pittsburgh. “I have such trust in him. He is an amazing person and an amazing physical therapist. That whole office really took such good care of me.
“It was life-changing. I don’t know what I would have been without them.”
An Unexplained Illness
Matt’s two-year medical odyssey began with a numb chin. He woke up with one in August 2023, the day after playing sand volleyball with his friends.
When the numbness didn’t go away within a few hours, Matt went to the hospital. He underwent imaging and other testing for stroke, lesions, or other abnormalities that could’ve caused his symptoms. However, the tests found nothing.
Over the ensuing three months, Matt’s symptoms grew worse.
“I was starting to have lots of pains outside of headache in my body,” he says. “I was starting to have shooting pains down my arms and legs, like someone was stabbing me.”
Matt was seeing a neurologist for his condition and was on nerve blockers. He also saw various other specialists, had two lumbar punctures, and spent time in the hospital.
But the mystery remained, and Matt’s condition continued to deteriorate. His hands seized up, as did his calf. He could no longer work, spending most of his time on his couch as he dealt with debilitating pain. He struggled to sleep and also developed severe depression and anxiety.
“It was so stressful. It was so depressing,” Matt says. “We kept getting our hopes up, but we’re seeing all these different people, (and) they just couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
“They checked off everything inside the box that would be normal or semi-normal, and we realized it was definitely outside the box.”
Matt’s wife works in the University of Pittsburgh Department of Surgery. She and her colleagues were also investigating potential causes of Matt’s symptoms and possible treatments. They came across intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), a treatment made from human antibodies from blood donors. IVIG can treat many different conditions.
They referred Matt to Fang Sun, MD, a neuromuscular specialist at UPMC Neurological Institute. She diagnosed him with inflammatory polyneuropathy, a condition in which the immune system attacks the nervous system.
Dr. Sun was “amazing,” Matt says. She recommended that he begin the IVIG treatment right away.
“After what felt like going through an endless roulette of providers with no solutions, meeting Dr. Sun was a breakthrough,” Matt says. “She immediately had ideas about what was going on and proposed the care plan that would end up saving me. For the first time, I had hope.”
Matt began IVIG treatment in December 2023, receiving infusions every three weeks to reset his immune system.
“At this point, we were willing to try anything,” Matt says. “I had no quality of life at this point. I was basically couchbound.”
The IVIG side effects felt like “extreme flu,” Matt says. He also developed brain swelling, a rare complication, and had to take high-dose steroids to counteract it.
But he says he also started noticing improvements with his symptoms within a month of starting IVIG.
“After the second treatment, after a few days, my right calf unlocked — which was insane,” Matt says. “It’s hard to explain because it was a seized muscle for five months.”
His hands also began to unlock. After four treatments, the numbness in his chin went away.
“That was maybe not huge medically, but (it was) huge mentally, when that went away,” he says.
Beginning the Recovery Process
After several months on IVIG, Matt was ready to start building his body back up. He was ready to start walking and moving again.
His wife had worked with Hashim previously for physical therapy. She contacted him about working with Matt.
Although Hashim had never worked with a patient with Matt’s condition before, he agreed to help.
“The principles of his issues were fairly common,” Hashim says. “He had balance issues. He had pain with activity. He had weakness.
“It just had to be individually tailored to his responses and how he was presenting that specific day.”
Matt first met Hashim in May 2024.
“He looked like somebody who was really just going through it physically,” Hashim says. “But mentally, despite what he was going through and the level of his function prior to being knocked down so far, the amount of positivity and excitement he had for rehab so he could start being active and progress his function, that’s what really struck me.
“He could easily have been significantly depressed, like he didn’t even want to get out of bed. But every day, even from the first day, he was just so ecstatic to get started and start moving.”
Because Matt had been dealing with his symptoms for so long, the rehab had to start slowly, with simple bed exercises. He began working with Hashim three days a week.
Matt’s condition also could cause flare-ups of pain without warning. That meant Hashim had to adapt the physical therapy regimen and even cut sessions short if necessary. He also stayed in constant contact with Dr. Sun about Matt’s progress.
“The big thing about this issue is, basically, you have to reset every nerve connection,” Matt says. “So, I had to do repeat processes that hurt myself. As you reset, it’s very painful. We slowly had to keep resetting all these processes as we were going.
“We had to learn how to push me to a certain point where we wouldn’t cause flare-ups.”
Matt says Hashim was incredibly supportive throughout the process.
“It was such a good atmosphere,” he says. “Super positive, super encouraging, but still challenging. I feel he pushed me as fast as I could have been pushed.”
Turning the Corner
Matt always had a goal of returning to the volleyball court — both as a coach and player.
“When a patient has a goal, a patient has a desire that gives us clear direction on what to do and where to take them,” Hashim says.
Several months into physical therapy, Matt was now working with Hashim twice a week. He had progressed from bed exercises to cardio and body conditioning. He started noticing improvements in his day-to-day life, such as moving better around his house, cooking, and going to the grocery store.
“We decided, ‘All right, let’s push,’” Matt says.
Hashim increased Matt’s therapy regimen to include more athletic activities, such as weight lifting, agility exercises, and jumping. The idea was to incorporate muscle groups beneficial for volleyball.
Matt also began peppering exercises — passing, setting, and hitting the ball back and forth with another member of his physical therapy team. He also started as an assistant girls’ volleyball coach at a Pittsburgh high school.
“To take somebody who was nearly bedridden to even the beginnings of that was very encouraging,” Hashim says. “That was very eye-opening and astonishing for the whole team because everybody on my entire staff was following him, watching him, and conversing with him.
“And so, for all of us to see that level of progression was awesome.”
Getting Back to 100%
Two years after his symptoms began, Matt’s life is returning to normal. He hasn’t experienced a shooting, stabbing pain in several months and will soon finish the IVIG infusions.
Matt is hoping to return to work. Before his symptoms began, he worked in nonprofit administration and hopes to get back to it.
He’s still an assistant for a Pittsburgh high school girls’ volleyball team, but he can become more active this year.
“I always have worked with youth development and athletics,” he says. “Getting back to it, teaching and coaching, is what I love.
“And it surprises the girls because now I’ll start playing with them. They’re just baffled because last year, it was more just me hobbling around and running drills, not playing in drills.”
His next goal is to return to playing in competitive sand volleyball tournaments. Before his medical condition arose, Matt frequently competed against college-age players in tournaments. He hopes to get back to that level.
Matt’s working with Hashim once a week to reach that goal.
“I always say that I got into this profession because I wanted to be a part of my patients’ progress and their success,” Hashim says. “I wanted to be integral in that. I wanted to share in that with them. And so, when he gets back to where he wants to be, really, for any patient, that’s the greatest accomplishment that you can have for anybody.
“We’re not quite there yet with Matt, but I have no doubt that he’s going to get there.”