It's not necessarily permanent. The whole process is rather complicated, but the loud noise damaged the tiny hair cells in the ear that are responsible for transmitting sound over the auditory nerve. The most common cause is believed to be permanently open chemical communication due to the lack of these cells on the glial supports that transmit the signal; potassium transmission I believe that triggers ion outbursts.
These glial cells can undergo apoptosis (voluntary death) once they 'realize' they are no longer supporting hair cells and would thus stop the tinnitus. This is unlikely because at least several hair cells are likely to remain on most supports and the damage is often more evenly distributed amongst many of these cells so few supports actually lose all the conductive hairs.
The other problem is reduced hearing sensitivity, this can lead to a more severe type of tinnitus that originates in the nervous system where the auditory cortex becomes rewired for permanent stimualtion due to a lack of it. But there have also been cases where neuropathic tinnitus develops without such preliminary conditions. With this you can ice pick your ear all you want and it won't do a damn thing. For that matter with the former you can ice pick your ear to no end and it won't help because the problem is very much internal.
The problem of sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus/hyperacusis (over sensitivity) are likely to be resolved in the coming decade considering there's already good progress with RNAi/stem cells. This is also likely true for the more severe type of tinnitus of the CNS considering neural prosthetics that are capable of selectively inhibiting ion transmissions.
So in conclusion, you're gonna have to deal with it for possibly another decade if not longer, but then you're certainly not amongst the few
Having an air filter or some other sound of flat or comparable power spectrum distribution (white/pink/brownian noise) is very effective at taking your mind off the problem, particularly at night.
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