Thanks for all the added (and warm) comments.
One thing my audiologist cautioned me about that I do believe has merit is caffeine. Which I truly love.
He told me to avoid caffeine and chocolate as it can aggravate the tinnitus. I have personally found that to be true. I also have found that when my personal stress level is high, that it aggravates the same. (it would suck to get stressed out when you avoid caffein and chocolate!!!
) But during times that it is really bugging me, I do avoid tea or diet coke.
To Clark's point, there is so little money spent on research on hearing loss in general and tinnitus specifically. My doctor told me 7 years ago that there was no major study taking place on it, at least in this country. It would be a real bonanza for someone to discover a truly significant cure, or even aid.
On a total side note: The only "appliance" option that would do me any good is a "frankenstein" implant that would be bored into the side of my skull, behind the low part of my bad ear. It's a snap on connector that allows you to snap a microphone type receiver on it. It then transmits sound from your bad side, through your skull, and it's picked up on the other side of your skull by your good ear. They demo'd that for me by placing an incredibly tight steel band (like a headphone assembly, only painful) that had that type of microphone/transmitter on it. And by golly it worked. I could hear things that were whispered on my right, but in my left ear. Sounded kind of tinny, but it worked. But it's little an open port to your skull when nothing is attached and you have to be careful to avoid getting it wet or dirty when nothing is plugged into it. And get used to the Frankenstein jokes simultaneously.
All in all, I'm content with all of it and hope that anyone else that would ever incur this type of loss look down the road and understand that if you have one good ear, it's all good.
Esoteric DV-50, Technics SL1200-M3D, B&K Phono 10 Preamp, Sumiko Blue Point Special Evo III, Bottlehead Stereomour, Orca's