Ill try to make this as short as possible, but ive noticed things lately and can't help but wonder if I started minoxidil too young.
Background: My father is completely bald, and my mom told me he was near bald after undergrad. Ive seen pictures of his wedding and other mid 20's pictures and he is very receding but you can still see hair there and it looks fairly thick.
One of his brothers has a full head of black wavy hair. Age 45
His other brother (that looks much like me) has medium brown hair like mine with a slightly receding hairline and thin hair but still looks good long in a slick back. Age 41
My brother is 24 and still has a very good hairline and head of hair but just started to get thin on the cervix of the head.
Ive always had thin medium brown hair even as a kid, but noticed signs of balding at 17.
Since I was 17 I remember one of my buddies saying I had thin hair but thought nothing of it since i still had a great head of hair as any high schooler should. At 18 i saw an old friend and i remembered him pointing at my hairline and noticing how far back it was. Not looking into it much, I picked up some cheap 5% kirkland minoxidil as I was an avid ebayer. I didn't understand the product but thought at the time if i just used a little every night that it would maintain my hair and help more grow, not realizing it takes a shedding and regrowth period. I used it every night, or at least tried to, but never used it twice a day. I always complained to my girlfriend how i was gonna go bald and she said i was crazy until she saw how thin my hair was in the back when my hair was wet one time. I didn't correlate at the time that it could have been a light shedding period but instead thought what i had always thought. That I was going bald! Well i stopped the use after finishing the bottle. I then went to school and had pretty good hair until I was 20 just with a ****ty hairline. I decided enough was enough and decided to really get after it and started researching it and thats when I got stinging nettle and nioxin shampoo and picked up some more minoxidil. I started to use the minoxidil better than I had before. I witnessed the shedding period but saw it was all normal and kept up with it. I saw the little doughy boys come in and was excited as i still had a pretty good head of hair and thought that the hairs that were coming in were the ones that had gotten very thin and that i caught them before they completely disappeared. I did this program for about 3 months and saw the regrowth back to normal. I was excited to see that it actually worked and pretty much stopped using it. I then remember after this time of the moderate use of minoxidil that I came out of the shower and saw very thin hair on the cervix of my head and thats when I really freaked. I started using the minoxidil religiously, 2x a day whenever i could. I remember going through another falling out stage but i knew it would come back so i kept going with it. This falling out stage lasted much longer though, nearly the whole summer. It came in pretty good and ive been keeping up with it ever since. I kept a good head of hair but would always analyze the ones that 'fell out' and saw that they were thicker follicles, but thinner and more colorless towards the root which i took as an indication as it was working more and getting my follicles even thicker. So its been over a year of religous use now and I can't say its gotten a whole lot thicker. My receding has completely stopped since mid 19-20 but I would take that as the use of the stinging nettle and nizoral shampoo combo. I feel like im on the same track as my dad when I am doing everything in my power to remove dht and stop balding! I feel like the minoxidil is just drying out my scalp and hair and leaving it lifeless. I stopped using it for about 5 days and did a nizoral, nothing, garnier fructis, nizoral, garnier fructis pattern and i had to say my head and hair felt very healthy. Do you think the minoxidil is doing more harm than good? I always had a thin hair type and maybe took my friends words out of context. Does stinging nettle, saw palmetto, nizoral, and nioxin do enough to stop in my case? Should I stop use of minoxidil for a bit and try what i am using now plus zenagen shampoo?
Thanks for reading such a long post and for your help.
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