I've had tinnitus for thirty years, 24/7/365. It's loud and proud at all times in mostly my right ear, but it doesn't trouble me. I've learned to put it on the back burner. You have one life and I don't think there's any other way. In 2012 I thought it was getting louder so my GP sent me to an audiologist. Unbeknown to me, I had mild hearing loss in both ears. As Donuel said, the partial explanation for the tinnitus was my brain trying to put back what my inner ear was now missing. I've worn hearing aids since then, programmed mostly for my now-missing high frequencies, and they reduce the tinnitus considerably. For a few years the hearing aids helped me to adjust to situations in which previously I couldn't hear conversation very well because of background noise. Unfortunately, things have since deteriorated to the point where I can't play in bands any more because I can no longer pick people out to latch on to, and I just avoid pubs altogether because I can't hear what anyone is saying against the background hubbub. The trouble with hearing aids is that, to a large extent, they override your brain's ability to discriminate what you need to focus on: everything is amplified at the programmed pitches to the same extent. My hearing loss is now categorised as mild-to-moderate, so I get by quite well in everyday life reasonably well in the majority of situations. I wept because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet...

My hearing aids are free, by the way, on the NHS, along with the batteries. Don't tell Trump, anybody.