I've had severe tinnitus for around five years. My sound is similar to a home fire alarm, high pitched and of course, greatly interferes with hearing. It never stops and is present 24 hours a day. I have learned to cope, but I go to sleep with it and it is still there when I wake up - so relentless! I started wearing hearing aids four years ago to help with the hearing loss and tinnitus. These hearing aids could be programmed to supposedly/hopefully help tinnitus issues. Hearing aids were very expensive....and they did not help tinnitus. Tinnitus program: programming varying background noise into the hearing aid that are suppose to train or trick your brain into not hearing the noise, or at least not as loudly. After several years of this, I had it turned off as I really did not need MORE noise in my ears than the tinnitus was already giving me! Anyway, I still wear hearing aids for the hearing loss that continues to increase. I wait for medical science to come up with a sure solution for all us tinnitus suffers!