i hope you get better soon Sean. a total absence of using iems or earbuds for a couple of days until the ringing subside might help (it does for me).
interestingly, for me personally, i found that using IEMs is a much safer choice than earbuds.
with earbuds i only use it at home, because it's easy to unconsciously drive it to unsafe volume when going outside to noisy places. even at home if someone turns on the TV, i switch to IEMs because i know i would increase volume with earbuds to drown the TV.
i have a constant ringing on my ears (a product of too much band situations without earplugs when i was in high school), although soft and not too prominent, and i can only hear it at night when there's no noise, or i put on IEMs/earplug without any music on.
and as i found out from many audio meetings, i hear music in a muuuch lower volume than every single person i met.
i have a sensitive ears that even small jumps in volume hurts my ears. so much so that i bring earplugs everyday. sometimes i put on iems with no music playing when going to the mall with my family, because using pure earplugs looks even weirder
i also always use earplugs when riding motorcycle. wind and street noises are really bad.
i consider that constant ringing as my friend and reminder. i use it as a volume benchmark: if i turn up the volume to the point that the ringing is drowned, then it's too loud.
with earbuds, i can't hear the ringing so much, so i gauge the volume with my own speech volume: if i talk louder than i usually do, then the music is too loud.
also keep in mind, the ears are adaptive to loud volume. one trick that i use to keep in check is after listening to one or two songs, i paused the music (usually at the loudest part of the song) for 20 seconds or so, then i press play again: if i notice the volume jumps too much compared to the ambient noise, then the music is too loud
sorry for the long post, but i do hope it would help others even if it's just a little.
