The only comfort I have...

[Deaner]

All I know is that I've never EVER had thick hair. All I know is that now my hair is thinner, but it's not altogether that bad. Thinner than the back of my head by a little bit, I'm just trying to match the back of my head in density, that's my goal. But I look at pictures of me in my youth, like a picture of me in Grade 7 with really short hair (probably 0.25inch, buzzcut sorta thing), and I mean, I can see alotta scalp, and then a picture of me @ age 16 with an already mature hairline (which looked really cool on me actually, I liked it), and the hair is maybe a little longer than the picture of me @ 12, and you can see scalp again (cuz of the flash used during the picture).

Basically, I have friends who can buzz their hair shorter than either of those pictures and have a thick black patch of hair on their head. That was never me, and although I wish that was my hair, this also gives me more hope in regaining what I've lost, because it tells me I haven't lost all that much. Any of you in a situation like this? Never really had thick hair, just sorta noticing it's not even what it used to be a year ago? Any luck, results, etc? Just thought I'd share a random tidbit and get some feedback.

 

[Jaygee]

My dad (who's bald) insists that I've always had thin hair on top---i.e. a wide part line. "You're one of those people who has fewer follicles on top," he says. This is why he is slow to believe me when I say there's a problem.
A derm said the same "fewer follicles" thing to my uncle when he was in his early '20s, while acknowledging also that he was starting to lose it.

I would love to believe my dad since it means I'm not terribly far gone, but he is directly contradicted by the hair stylist my mom and I have gone to since 2000. She says that until recently my hair was "insanely thick".

I wonder if this is actually true of some people; that they naturally have slightly less density on the crown/vertex than elsewhere. Anyone know?

If it is true, I don't know whether to believe The Patriarch (who's known me all my life) or The Stylist (whose job it is to mess with keratin strands on people's heads).

 

[odb]

Deaner your situation sounds alot like mine.

I've always had thin hair and a "high" hairline. From the summer of 2002 to the summer of 2003 my hair went from great to sh*t.

During this time I never noticed any sheds just that my hair became harder and harder to style, so in May 2003 i buzzed it off because I could not style it anymore (I was still in denial though) and I was shocked over how thin it looked. I could clearly see a pattern where I would go bald.
Thats when I truly realized I was balding. I started Propecia in July. That was a great descision.
All I can say now 10 months later is that my results are awesome.
My thinning patch at the crown is filling in, which is great, but the best results I've had are at the front.
I had diffuse thinning all over the first 3rd part of my head a year ago, now all those thin and light hairs are reversed back to thick dark and healty looking ones.


I started minoxidil 6 weeks ago to see if I can regrow even more at the crown.

 

[Deaner]

Wow odb! Sounds EXACTLY like my situation! I have to try harder and harder to make my hair look thick now while styling, and I just started Propecia 4 days ago. I'm hoping with everything in me I see results like yours. How soon (based on your experience), should I start seeing some thickening? I know everybody's different, but if you could just tell me how soon you started noticing you were headed uphill. Thanks alot!

 

[odb]

Just like you don't notice your hair is thinning in the beginning you don't notice when it gets better either. But I would say that after only 3 months I could see a pretty good cosmetic improvement by looking in the mirror and when I compared my baseline pics to my 3 months pics I had taken I just couldn't believe it was the same person. From there on it's been a slow but steady improvement month by month.

Obviously because my hair was buzzed I saw the difference much earlier than if my hair would have been longer