As I remember, I tapered off the nortriptyline and the pain was somewhat higher, but I don't think I had a rebound effect where it went higher than originally. And then later I switched from gabapentin to lyrica (tapering off of gabapentin with a doctor's advice, and moving onto lyrica). For some people, according to this pain doc, lyrcia works better and they appreciate the better dosing schedule (2x and versus 3x with gabapentin). That wasn't the case for me -- I thought gabapentin worked better, so we tapered me off of lyrica and back on to gabapentin.

I tried to taper off of gabapentin and see how I could do without medication. The best I could do was to use 300 mg 3x/day for a while, but I soon figured out that I was just going to have a ridiculous amount of pain doing that. I went back to 600 mg 3x/day. As time went on, I moved it up to two 600s during the day and 900 at night... Then to 900s also during the day... And now I'm back to 1200 mg 3x/day, which is the max dose. Since this started, I have always been using some kind of medication.

When using nortriptyline, I was also using a bulking agent like metamucil, but also found I needed something like miralax as well. They have different ways of acting that can be complimentary.

I've also found stress-relieving meditations to be helpful (focusing on the breath), massage, and gentle exercise. Acupuncture didn't do much for me, but has helped some people.