I'll answer the last question first.

I had a misdiagnosed allergy. The swelling from the inflammation cut off the blood supply to my inner ear and probably killed some hair cells.

I am also a professional musician, but using ear protection. Before the allergic reaction, I had about 3 db loss in the high frequencies. Probably from the days before I discovered musician's ear plugs.

Yes, I'm still having relief.

The Taurine works gradually. I bought a number of months supply, I forget how many, and thought it wasn't working. When I ran out, I could tell the difference in a week, the volume went up quite a bit.

My tinnitus has always been variable. On a scale of 1-10 before the Taurine I would guess it varied from 5-9.

After the Taurine, from 0-3.

I have many quiet days. Often it's so light I can't tell I'm having a hiss unless I'm in a very quiet environment. Sometimes I have a low level ringing that is easy to ignore. In most situations, I don't hear it at all, but in quieter places, I can. Since you called attention to it, and I'm in my office with no sound distraction, I can hear the faint tone. If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have noticed.

So for me, I would say the relief is over 90%.

If I wake up at night, sometimes I have the ringing at its new highest level, which is still much lower than the pre-taurine level.

It's an amino acid, found in many foods. I just take it now, first thing in the morning with a class of water. My ear doc is interested, said it doesn't seem to be doing me any harm, and if it works for me, keep doing it.

According to Wiki: "Taurine has an observed safe level of supplemental intake in normal healthy adults at up to 3 g/day.[68] Even so, a study by the European Food Safety Authority found no adverse effects for up to 1,000 mg of taurine per kilogram of body weight per day.[69]"

But you might want to check with your doctor first, I'm not a professional, and therefore not qualified to give others health advice.

Bob