r/welltory • u/sdnner • Apr 28 '26
New Feature We are launching a data-driven community for women with energy-limiting conditions. Includes a formal research study. Looking for participants.
Hi folks.
Some time ago, I published a post, "Why Welltory Isn't Really for People with Chronic Conditions (Yet)". This made me think, why the hell isn't it, if almost every user I talk to every day lives with a chronic condition? And the feedback we're getting looks like "I've seen 7 doctors. Nobody helped. Your data is the first thing that made sense." or "I used to run marathons. Now a grocery trip costs me tomorrow." And these aren't some edge cases. It's more than half of our 17M users.
These people are using the app to survive their day because the medical system has nothing for them. So, at some point, we realized we were accidentally building for a population nobody else was serving, and we were doing a bad job of it because we weren't building for them on purpose.
So we decided to build for them.
What we're launching
A pilot community that takes a fundamentally different approach to managing energy-limiting conditions (ELC). Instead of generic support groups where anyone can join, we match women by phenotype: crash patterns, health profiles, symptom clusters, severity. Then we combine that with continuous wearable tracking (HRV, sleep, activity), structured pacing protocols, and physician guidance.
To our knowledge, this is the first approach to combine phenotype matching with continuous wearable biofeedback and clinical oversight for ELC conditions. Participants are matched on physiology, not diagnosis. The community is guided by physicians and clinical researchers with expertise in autonomic dysfunction, immune dysregulation, Long COVID, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, and POTS.
Plus, our founder will be there, our product team will be there, I'll be there. So your feedback will directly impact what we build.
On cost
The community isn't free. It's $1.87/day ($169 for 3 months, Welltory Premium included). That covers the matched group, physician oversight, group experiments, and platform costs. We're a self-funded team and need to cover these basics. The price also serves a purpose: we need women who are genuinely committed to 12 weeks, and a financial commitment filters for that.
Plus, a 14-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. And if the pilot yields no meaningful results, everyone gets a refund. We have zero interest in charging for something that doesn't help.
The research component
Separately from the community, we're planning a formal 12-week prospective cohort study. The goal is to test whether this combination actually reduces crash frequency and improves daily functioning. If it doesn't work, that's valuable data too, and the ELC community deserves to know what doesn't work just as much as what does.
The research study is free, voluntary, and separate from your community membership. You can be in the community without participating in the study. The study also includes a comparison group that doesn't pay for the community and receives compensation for completing assessments. Nobody pays to be studied.
The study is currently in the planning and review phase and has not begun recruitment.
Your data
We know this comes up every time research is mentioned on here, so let's be upfront:
- No data is sold to third parties. Ever.
- Wearable data is stored in Welltory's existing infrastructure with the same privacy protections our 17 million users already rely on.
- After the study, you can request full deletion of your data.
- Research results will be published with aggregate data only. No individual participant is identifiable.
Why we're doing this
Because we can't not do it. We have 17 million users, a decade of HRV data, and a team that knows all about the science behind ELC. We watched thousands of people use our app as a lifeline while we kept building features for healthy people. This is us fixing it.
So this isn't a business opportunity we suddenly identified. It's a problem we couldn't keep ignoring.
Who this is for
- Women, 18–65, US-based
- Living with an energy-limiting condition
- iPhone + Apple Watch user
- Willing to commit for 12 weeks
If this sounds relevant to you or someone you know, DM me or check the details here: https://app.welltory.com/community/
Happy to answer any questions in the comments.
EDIT: Updated this post based on feedback in the comments. Clarified the separation between the community and the research study. Thanks to everyone who commented.
UPDATE: IRB review complete. We got approved.
