dmplaura- I've found many of your posts very interesting. I've been sufferring with atypical TN going on 4 years now. For the first 2 years or so it only affected the left side of my tongue and was moreso a constant burning irritation- so for those first couple years I tried to ignore it, mainly because my dentist would shrug it off as burning mouth syndrome although he saw no visible signs of irritation. I'm wondering if you even have burning mouth, mainly because your case sounds so similiar to mine. After those first two years my burning pain began to rapidly spread throughout the left side of my face/head- from the tongue to the gums (especially where my wisdom teeth had been removed many years ago), to my canine tooth, eventually the entire inside of mouth, down my throat, then deep boring into my ear, than up the left side of my head into forehead and temple, just recently it has spread to my eye. Besides the intense deep burning, I feel an unrelenting pressure in my sinus cavities, especially in my ear and under my eye. I feel like I have a massive cold everyday-- I recently read that some physicans believe TN can begin from untreated sinus infections causing nerve damage...creepy stuff.

I also experience that metallic, iron-like taste at times. Multiple times it tasted like blood enough that I checked in the mirror for bleeding gums. As for smells I never really thought about it, but many times I complained of a very foul odor like mold or old vomit, sour milk perhaps. The weather also effects my TN as well, I can feel OK and step outside into the humidity and by the time I'm in my car it has flared up. Hell maybe I do have burning mouth but since they diagnosed me with aTN they've blamed that. Got MVD surgery in a month...scared ********.