Hello… I’m Jamie, came across this site while googling. Sorry if this turns out long, I just thought it might be good to write everything out, see if anyone has similar cases and maybe could offer any advice.
I have had some headaches my whole life, but I could usually find something to blame. Usually if I didn’t drink enough water, went too long without eating, etc, I would get terrible headaches. I never saw a doctor because I figured they would just tell me to drink more water. My mom has migraines, but my headaches didn’t seem to be like that.
A little under a year ago, I started getting a differen type of headaches that would start at the back/base of my head and radiate to behind my eyes. Before this, my headaches usually happened at the end of the day. But I was waking up in the mornings with these new headaches, and they were happening often. Some weeks I would have daily headaches, sometimes I would have a few days without headaches. Always associated with a stiff neck and a “tightness” in my neck that I couldn’t quite explain. Sometimes the headache itself wasn’t that bad, but the neck tightness/stiffness was unbearable, miserable, would keep me from sleeping, etc. I went to general doctor, who prescribed ibuprofen 800, muscle relaxers and imitrex. The imitrex did nothing, the others helped me sleep. It kept getting worse so she referred me to a neurologist, who put me on 50mg topomax (for migraines). This seems to help keep my headaches from escalating to the bad pain behind my eyes, but does nothing for the neck stiffness that is keeping me from sleeping. Neuro has me get an MRI done, and afterwards explains, in these terms, that my “cerebellum is slipped down 4.8mm”. I had already read about Chiari, but this didn’t seem like a good explanation for someone who hasn’t. Lol. She referred me to a neurosurgeon just to get his opinion. I really liked him, and he seemed open to working with me about anything, but he didn’t really help. He said usually it isn’t considered Chiari until 5mm. Also, my headaches are not made worse by coughing/straining/bending over, so they don’t totally fit.
So this is where I am now, I don’t usually get horrible headaches but I have almost constant tightness in my neck. It takes ibuprofen and a big glass of wine, alone with a heating pad on my neck/shoulders to fall asleep. Sometimes I feel bad complaining because it isn’t necessarily PAIN, just a tightness and uncomfortable feeling that won’t go away to the point where it makes me want to cry.
I did recently start taking a systemic enzyme supplement, because I work for the company, and it actually does seem to help a little (has anti inflammatory action), but the tightness is definitely still there, especially at night and in the morning. Not a good way to wake up. 
If nothing else, I think it was helpful to me to write all this out, so thanks for that!
