Show HN: Dr. of Physical Therapy: I vibe coded gamefied wrist pain recovery app
by Dr_Elliot | 2025-06-24 13:42:09+00:00
TL;DR: PT with zero coding experience built a full RSI rehab platform using Claude/Cursor after dev teams quoted me $300-500k. Currently in pre-release and honestly can't believe this worked.

I'm a physical therapist, and my business partner and I have been working with pro esports players for 10+ years now. Wrist & forearm pain from repetitive strain injuries were the most common issues we treated.

The stories were almost always the same. These gamers (and later developers, musicians, office workers, basically anyone who uses their hands a lot) would go to doctors and get the most useless advice: "just rest it," slap a brace on it, maybe some cortisone shots, or worst case scenario - surgery.

Meanwhile, when we'd test these people, they had like 10% of normal muscle endurance. This was often the primary problem, not some physical defect that needed surgery.

By working with professional gamers we figured out a treatment approach that works really efficiently, but the problem was access. The healthcare system is basically broken for anyone who doesn’t just need pills and rest.

So we started a low budget tech stack to solve this problem- Typeform survey hooked up to Zapier that would email people one of 120 different PDF workout programs based on their answers. It worked, but people had so many questions about progression, when to increase difficulty, how much activity was too much, etc.

We knew we needed to build a real app. Being naive, we reached out to some development teams for quotes. After we described all the functionality we wanted this app to have…

Every single quote: $300-500k minimum.

As bootstrapped PTs. That was completely out of the question...

3 months of nights and weekends later, I built:

-A comprehensive assessment system that maps pain regions and tests endurance -Algorithms that prescribe personalized exercise programs -HIPAA-compliant everything -Stripe subscriptions -Discord integration (with automatic role assignment) so users can actually talk to us -Smart progression that adjusts based on how people are doing -Load management calculations (fancy math that tells people when they're overdoing it) -Admin panels, A/B testing, the whole nine yards

It's called 1HP Troubleshooter and honestly, I still can't believe it's real. This isn't just another "do 10 wrist stretches" app. It's solving a real problem that affects millions of people who've been completely failed by the healthcare system.

Users take detailed assessments, get exercise programs tailored to their specific issues, track their progress over time, and learn how to manage their activity levels so they don't keep re-injuring themselves. Most importantly users are provided with an experience that teaches them why it is actually important to do these exercises. OR learn more about how their understanding of pain can affect their recovery. All backed by our current research and our clinical experience. It basically givespeople access to the specialized treatment approach that usually costs hundreds of dollars per session.

We're in pre-release right now after going through prototyping, alpha testing, and beta testing. Real people are using this and actually getting better, which is honestly surreal.

But here's the real reason I'm sharing this: 3 months ago I had no idea what powershell was and now I have a legit healthcare app with paying users.

If you've been sitting on an idea because you think it's "too complex" or you're "not technical enough" - I'm living proof that's BS. The tools exist right now to turn your domain knowledge into actual working software.

If anybody is interested in checking out what i’ve built here I’d love your feedback.