I sympathise with you. I noticed the same sound in my left ear six months ago (minus the hearing loss) and after visiting a specialist, he diagnosed it as Tinnitus.

In my case (as I assume that Tinnitus varies from person to person), I would describe my Tinnitus as repeated cycles of very quiet popping sounds, perhaps of only a few decibels. The sound being quiet enough, that depending on the environment, I'm sometimes able to ignore it.

The cycles begin from a period of complete silence, usually lasting around 5 to 15 seconds (or even minutes!). From there, the popping starts slowly and increases in amount until eventually it stops, and then the cycle repeats. These cycles can be as short as 30 seconds or last over a minute.