You don't have to sit through this alone. Crutch Club matches you with another peer going through a similar recovery — same injury, close in age, same stage. Free.
Get matched →Takes 3 minutes. We introduce you by email only after you both say yes.
Your injury, your surgery date, your age, and a little about you. The form below is the whole thing.
Someone genuinely similar — same injury, close in age, close in stage. Both of you approve before anything is shared.
We make a warm email intro, then get out of the way. Text, call, meme exchange — whatever works for you two.
pro tip: sign up as soon as you can, even before surgery, so you've already got a friend when the hard part hits
Crutch Club is a free peer-matching service that connects adults in the United States who are recovering from ACL, knee, hip, or leg surgery or injury with a similar peer — same injury, close in age, same recovery stage — through a double-opt-in email introduction.
We match on injury type, age, and recovery stage based on your surgery or injury date, and we respect your gender match preference. A real person reads every signup — including the "in your own words" box, which is the part that tells us the most. Both people approve before any email introduction is made.
Yes. Matching is free for patients and will stay that way.
Yes! Crutch Club started with 18–35, so most of our members are in that range right now — which means if you're older, your match might take longer to find. We'd rather tell you that upfront than leave you wondering. Sign up anyway: the pool grows every week, and you'll hear from us the moment we find someone genuinely similar.
Only the person making your match. Your potential match sees your first name, age range, injury, stage, and interests — never your email or last name until you've both said yes to the intro.
Totally normal, no hard feelings. Reply to your intro email and we'll find you someone new.
Email us immediately. We'll stop matching that person — with you or anyone else — and we keep a record so they don't quietly come back through a new signup. The honest limit: someone determined could sign up again under a different email, and we can't promise we'd always catch it. What we can promise is that intros happen over plain email, so you're never locked in — you can stop replying or block them at any point, and you never owe anyone a response.
No — and we'd rather be straight with you about that. We don't verify anything beyond what people tell us on the form. Your match is a stranger from the internet, so use the judgment you'd use anywhere online: keep it to email or text at first, share more only when you're comfortable, and if anything ever feels off, stop replying and email us.
Recovery can be genuinely hard on your mental health, and a peer is not a substitute for real support. Please talk to your care team — and if you're in crisis in the US, you can call or text 988 anytime.