Thank you andrew for the positive and honest heads up on this issue. I have had tinnitus for only a little while { maybe I shouldn't say only a little while, because even only a little while seems like an eternity and it sucks } going on 2 years now. Mine happened at a band practice right before I had a chance to put in my earplugs that we all always used to wear. And the band started up to jam and there went my ears, the loud music did me in. And it's sad, because the thing that I loved the most, music, and being the lead singer, and performing live onstage, ripped my heart out that day. Now I have nothing to do with music at all. I'm gun shy now and can't be around loud music or anything loud for that matter. I pray about it everyday, and put it all in god's healing hands, and pray, god gives doctors the knowledge to find an outright cure, or the knowledge to at least find us some relief and a way to lower the noise and the speed of it all. I also have a hissing sound in both ears andrew. And it's funny { not really } that you use the volume level on a scale from 1 to 10 to describe the loudness that you hear, as I do the same when I talk to people who I find that have tinnitus. My hissing level is about a 7 and the volume is about an 8 or 9. None of it though is any good. So I'm trying to do my best in dealing with it. But it's hard brother, no denying that. God bless you andrew, and I sure do pray that god grants us all who suffer, a cure from this dreaded affliction. May god bless you always andrew.