Early in his career, without protection for his ears, the loud noise began to follow Ulrich off-stage. "It's this constant ringing in the ears," Ulrich said. "It never sort of goes away. It never just stops."

Except the ringing is not spurred by actual sound. It is a condition called tinnitus, a perception of sound where there is none. "It's a phantom auditory sensation like phantom limb pain when an arm is cut off, and you feel pain in that missing limb," said Richard Salvi, a leading tinnitus expert and director of the Center For Hearing and Wellness at the University at Buffalo in New York. "Much the same seems to happen when you have tinnitus."
- Read more here including more comments from Lars