After two years of painstakingly slow, but steady improvement, Dr. Galer and I decided it was time to start tapering off the medications. We started with the lidocaine first, and then Neurontin. It took about a year to get completely off of each drug, and tapering was not without its problems. The final medication to be eliminated was Paxil, which seemed to give me the most tapering trouble. Each time I tapered the dosage, I would develop aching pain that would simply not go away unless I went back to the original dose. It took nearly a year before I was able to stop taking Paxil.