57, I have full time 24/7 tinnitus. Some days the ring seems louder, some not. Always there though. What made it full time was a shot from a .44 revolver in a quiet winter woods about 10 years ago. Back then the ringing only showed up when I exposed myself to excess noise. The sound pressure pulse from that one shot was severe enough to finally damage the inner ear hair cells. some c/p info: The inner ear contains the sensory organs for hearing and balance. The cochlea is the hearing part of the inner ear. The semicircular canals , the utricle and the saccule are the balance part of the inner ear.
The cochlea is a bony structure shaped like a snail and filled with fluid ( endolymph and perilymph ). The Organ of Corti is the sensory receptor inside the cochlea which holds the hair cells , the nerve receptors for hearing.
The mechanical energy from movement of the middle ear bones pushes in a membrane ( the oval window ) in the cochlea. This force moves the cochlea's fluids that, in turn, stimulate tiny hair cells. Individual hair cells respond to specific sound frequencies (pitches) so that, depending on the pitch (frequency) of the sound, only certain hair cells are stimulated.
Signals from these hair cells are translated into nerve impulses. The nerve impulses are transmitted to the brain by the cochlear portion of the acoustic nerve (VIII cranial nerve).
The acoustic nerve carries impulses from the cochlea to a relay station in the mid-brain, the cochlear nucleus, and on to other brain pathways that end in the auditory cortex of the brain. At the cochlear nucleus, nerve fibers from each ear divide into two pathways. One pathway ascends straight to the auditory cortex on one side (hemisphere) of the brain. The other pathway crosses over and ascends to the auditory cortex on the other side (hemisphere) of the brain. As a result, each hemisphere of the brain receives information from both ears.
end c/p. IMO, there is nothing that will remove the damage done to the inner ear, therefore the ringing will remain. I've simply learned to live with it.
