Good morning @notgivingup17 Thank you for sharing your experience with the Nortiptyline.
Distraction is what it sounds like. My husband is a musician and some days he can get lost in his work and ignore his pain. Neuroplasticity exercises is something that I'm just now learning about. There was an article recently in The Washington Post about this. I've been listening to a Podcast created by a website/app called Curable Health where they interview researchers, doctors, and patients about this approach. It's interesting but I still don't have a grasp on what the exercises are but it involves a whole method of how to approach your pain. In some other discussions it's talked about. The first person to write about this approach was Sarno in the 1980s and since then there has been research to back up the theory.
May you be healthy and strong.