I thought acupuncture was deemed purely placebo effect hoax years ago...but to the point: I also have minor hearing damage. Mostly it means I have several but shallow dips in the midrange area. I have pretty much perfect hearing still when the volume is moderate, and there is no background noise.

BUT whenever there is background noise or chatter, be it a video projector fan blowing in the classroom, or at worst people's chatter and background music in a bar, it becomes hard of impossible for me to decipher what I hear. For years now, in noisy bars, I've gone by with lip reading and mostly just smiling and nodding my head. Seems to work well in most conversations ;-)

I know I should wear ear protection, and I have custom made/molded silicon ones as well, but I tend to only use one in one ear at a time. I just hate it how they still change the sound, no matter how little, it's still too much.

I just figure, well, if it goes, it goes then, and I'll just have to stop making music. The world won't be missing much :-)