My tinnitus was probably caused by the same thing, plus a lot of loud band music. It is constant now.
Mine is a constant high pitched eeeeeeee plus an underlying hiissssss. Sometimes I can tune it out, then I read an article like this which triggers the YOU CANT IGNORE ME instruction in my brain.
Loud rock concerts in high school and college, manufacturing factory floors, wood shop and metal shop, unruffled lawn mowers, homemade explosives, exploding bicycle tires, rifle fire, .357 magnum pistols, loud stereos and headphones, CANAM and TRANSAM car races, power plants — you name it, I did it. Nobody ever told me, not once, “watch it, kid...you’ll harm your hearing.” But would I have listened?