Tinnitus, Etiology, Treatments, Objective Efficacy

There are all kinds of treatment out there and some people even claim they are very successful but how do we objectively measure how effective it is?

The sound itself never goes away so how can we measure what improvement there has been when tinnitus cannot be measured except by what the patient reports?

A person can exaggerate or minimise their suffering either deliberately or by mistake.

Since there is no way to measure tinnitus or the distress it causes which doesnt rely on patients own report, it is misleading to make claims about the effectiveness of these treatments.

It seems to me that nobody even knows what tinnitus is? where does the sound come from? how is it created? what is the exact mechanism? Since the brain is such a complicated thing which we simply don't understand, the secrets of tinnitus may be hidden from us for many more years to come.