Hey guys, found this thread some weeks ago when morale was really low and it inspired me to continue. Thought I'd share my story.
I'm 29 years old and I guess I am a Norwood 2,5-ish. Main problem is that my hairline is really messed up on one side. The other side is fine. It's always been like that though, and I have never been troubled with hairloss so I don't think I'm balding per se, but who knows.
I've been doing minoxidil and microneedling for a little over five months now. My hope is that the combination of those two will fill in the temple area on the troubled hairline side. I've only been doing 1,5 since last month. Did 0,5 the first three months. Up until recently there was little to no progress, except for some new odd weak transparent hairs in the lower temple region. Then one day, just after I had hit month 5 (this is two months after microneedling with 1,5) I could identify that my frontal region had gotten darker and stronger. Now a few weeks later I can feel new hair making its way on the designated problem area. I can only feel them when I stroke my hand over the area. They seem small and aren't visible, but I am excited regardless. Since we are in lockdown I decided to up the ante and shave the entire side of my head. This gives me better access and makes it easier to roll over the problem area. The downside is that I look like an absolute idiot. I pray to the hair gods that this works because otherwise I am going to have to shell out way too much money on a hair transplant.
With 1,5 I've been microneedling one time per week, but I'm going to up this to as many times I can (basically the day the wounds are fully healed). I also do biotin and nizoral shampoo. I've also applied lavender oil to the wounded microneedle area after rolling because some random dude on youtube recommended it. I'm switching to castor oil now. Started massaging the scalp a couple times a day as well.
I guess that the main point writing this is to tell people who are struggling to see progress: please don't give up. To me it happened suddenly. I'm going to keep on for at least one year before I determine if this will give me sufficient results.
Hope to post an succesful update here in a few months. God bless you and best of luck on your journeys.