I have never had headaches until Jan 2010 and it started with the noise in my ears like you described. I was first diagnosed with occipital neuralgia(pinched nerve) because the person that read my first MRI did not pick up on the Chiari. It is hard to diagnose the Chiari even with a MRI. It takes the right radiologist to see it. After the Chiari diagnosis 11/2010 I then had a MRI with a study of the flow of Spinal Fluid and that is when I was diagnosed with Chiari I malformation and Arnold's Chiari 11/2010. Immediately 11/2010 they put a shunt in my head to let the fluid flow instead of being trapped in my head (immediate relief). The pain was very different from a "migraine headache". It was a continuous pain in a specific place in my head, a pressure pain like someone had their fist inside my head pushing to the top of my head, mine on the left top. That's the only way I know to describe it. It took almost a year to get the correct diagnosis and a different doctor to diagnosis it correctly. The shunt relieved the pressure pain but did not relieve all my symptons. Pain when I sneezed, coughed, or gagged. That was from the Chiari where my "brain tonsils" were pushed through the opening in the base of my skull due to my skull being too small for my brain. I then had Chiari decompression surgery 2/2011 where they make the opening @ base of skull larger and removed a part of my vertebrae to give my brain more room. This surgery helped with the remaining pain I was experiencing. I still have to have the shunt because the aquaducts that allow flow are small and have evidently gotten smaller with age. I was 48 when all this began. It usually effects people earlier since it's a congenital condition (born with it). No idea why it affected me at such late age.