Posting this as a motivational story for myself, and as proof of some results on pure mechanical therapy.
A little backstory: started loosing hair around 20, did nothing, went to clean NW7. Got a bit crazy during first covid lockdown and, after eating junk food for a month and binge wathching netflix, decided to do scalp massages and see if I can get some of my hair back (friend sent me a link).
Took pics on 1st of May 2020, starting day: hair buzzed to 7 milimeters.
After a month, decided to buy dermiantor 2. It took about another month for it arrive to arrive, started needling about mid July, twice per week, 2 mm crown, about 1.5 mm front. Cleaned up diet on May 1st (I was about 30 pound overweight at that point). Also vegetarian. Lived clean for about 5 months, intermittent fasting 16/8 most days, did scalp massages 2x daily 20 minutes, micro-needled once every two weeks, put emu oil on scalp overnight for one night after I micro-needled. Things were going OK, lost all the extra weight and even went 10 pounds below normal. Didn't really monitor hair, plan was to reevaluate after 1 year.
Then another lock-down came and I kinda lost it, had another month where I ate junk food and did no massages or micro-needling.
After that went back to business as usual. One thing that bothered me was slow time recovery after massages, and I'd get grooves on my scalp from them, which would form into crusts. I needed an oil to help heal and keep scalp soft. Emu oil is too sticky, you have to wash your hair to het it out. So I introduced Hairmetto in late February I think, both serum and oil. Hopefully it reduces some DHT, but it does good job of healing scalp and most importantly it is light. I can just wipe it away with paper towel in morning and go on my way. The new pics were taken on 1st of June, a full year of doing massages and needling. Apart from that month I missed, I'd say I did it all at least 95% of the time, missing an odd massage here or there, or skipping a week of needling and moving to next week. Had another junk food month binge in April, but continued the program this time. Here the hair is shorter, buzzed to 5 milimeters for the pics:
Lightning is the same, same place in the apartment, same phone, night outside. Angles are a bit off. Still NW7, however, there has been some definitive improvement in the crown. My skin there is fairly thick and elastic, so it is easy to massage and I can go 2.5mm there with derminator, no problem. I now even have a swirl there. On the right side of my scalp there is a patch of hair that has been noticed by friends, as well as the swirl in the crown. The first pic is a bit deceiving because of the angle. Most notable for me, I've seen myself on a camera playing sport before and after. It is a fixed camera so the angle and quality is the same, same pitch, same lighting. I'm still bald af, but now there is a shadow on my head when I see myself compared to before, on the whole head, and especially the crown.
Current plan is to regrow the crown if I can (started min and some natural AAs) and get a hair transplant for the rest. I have a pretty dense donor area by my estimate. Will update in half a year.