So, I am happy to at least give you my story. I’m an old school metal head. I’ve been to a lot of rock shows. A lot. So when I started having ringing in my right ear I was just kind of like…no shit, don’t color me shocked. It wasn’t extreme, but it was there and it was annoying and it was weird. Almost sometimes like an old timey radio between channels. Anyways, I ignored it forever as part of my own bad life choices. But I have this other annoying thing called a wife, and we are blessed with decent health care so I eventually went to the doc. He looked in there and said he didn’t see shit. But out of abundance of caution he sent me to a fancy ENT. Took a month to get an appointment, and he didn’t see shit either, but out of another abundance of caution he sent me for a noodle MRI. Got a call from his office the next day that I needed to come in as soon as possible. That’s when you know you’re fucked. So anyways, my tinnitus was caused by a tumor wrapped around my auditory nerve. This was caused by a super rare genetic disease called neurofibromas type 2. So basically I am a mutie whose super power is to grow tumors on my cranial nerves. Sweet. There is nothing w cure. Treatment is currently radiation or surgery. I’ve had one surgery which took that tumor but also my hearing on that side. I have another surgery next month for a tumor in my fucking face, which grew off the nerve that runs through there. I can actually feel that fucker with my figer, and if I mess with it my ear goes numb. So long story short kids. 1) wear hearing protection at shows 2) get weird medical shit checked out. If you’d like to learn more about neurofibromatosis please visit www.ctf.org