I lost all hearing in my right ear about 23 years ago, presumably due to a viral infection of the inner ear. This left me with severe tinnitus. It's not a backg

I lost all hearing in my right ear about 23 years ago, presumably due to a viral infection of the inner ear. This left me with severe tinnitus. It's not a background noise.. it's the only thing I "hear" from that ear. It took about 6 months for me to cope with it and probably a year before I generally stopped noticing it. At some point I started getting through most days without giving it a single thought. Anything that changes the pitch or volume/intensity will cause it to dominate my senses for a while. Sometimes it will just randomly skyrocket in intensity where it's overwhelming. I don't really know how to describe it other than "debilitating pain that doesn't hurt." Doctors told me caffeine and alcohol will make it worse. I guess that's probably true, but I consume quite a lot of caffeine and that doesn't seem to impact it. Alcohol in less than get drunk amounts is fine too. The big one is sleep deprivation. That'll mess me up every time. Anyway, it sucks. You don't really have any choice but to get used to it and your brain should do that at some point. My recommendation is to accept it and stop trying to get rid of it or trying to find some hack to help manage it. Once you've gotten used to it and only suffer from periodic episodes, then start trying various tricks to push it back out of mind.