SymptomGenie.net is a website dedicated to promoting the use of and research into pain drawings.
The developer of this website is Peter Bryner from Perth.
His interest in pain drawings began in the late 1980's as he started researching the illustrations of Janet Travell's work into triggerpoints and myofascial pain syndromes.
It soon emerged that research in this area of pain was almost non-existent. Then and even now there appears to be a tacit acceptance of the patterns of pain
that appear in almost every medical textbook. With the exception of the work of Nikolai Bogduk and his team, few pain drawings were more than graphic representations of pattern, area or spread of pain.
Almost all clinics collect pain drawings so there is a large resource that is either untapped or poorly interpreted.
At the time, research was limited to assessing drawings for psychological involvement and estimations of area affected.
Peter assessed each of these aspects of pain research and found them flawed, especially when applied to low back pain.
As a chiropractor, Peter was also interested in how lower back pain was documented.
Research into this area, whilst extensive, appears confused and elemental due to convenient and perhaps oversimplied operational definitions.
One problem is that costs attributed to LBP in the health system are substantial.
Unresolved LBP, therefore destined to become chronic, accounts for the largest part of this cost.
In 1998 Peter completed his Master's degree by research at RMIT University on the subject of pain drawings.
Since then he has been in private practice as a chiropractor, but maintains his interest in pain drawings.
This website is a compilation of this interest and an extension of the Master's work using internet technology to allow online area assessment of pain drawings.