When I was a teenager I always had a high hairline. It was quite high on the forehead and had a bit of a widow's peak. However, it was still within normal range, and my father at nearly 50 years old had exactly the same kind of hairline. His hair is fantastic in fact. By 50 he had no visible loss and almost no grey either. So I always assumed I just had his "strong" hair... even though my mother's father is NW6 and a couple of my dad's brothers have thinned to NW3 or 4.
My hair was always very fine and limp and impossible to style into anything nice so I always kept it short as a teenager and in my early 20s. I did let it grow out longer once when I was 19, but I didn't style it and didn't really pay attention to how thick or thin it looked. I just liked the feeling of longer hair. Besides this short period, it was always short. Unfortunately, I think this stopped me from noticing the early stages of thinning because frankly it still looks quite good cut short.
Late 2009, I was 24, and still hadn't noticed any thinning. I decided I was sick of short hair and I wanted a longer style, so I started to grow it out. My friend was looking at the back of my head one day and said "you're going bald". I thought he was joking, because he likes mean jokes like that, and he was just looking at the "whorl" in the back, where you can always see a bit of scalp. I felt it with my fingers though and I was surprised that it seemed a lot thinner than before. Just the whorl, though, I thought.
As I grew it out a bit longer, I noticed in the shower that it felt different than when I had longer hair at 19. I thought it was the texture... thinner, or more brittle, and just less volume in general. Strange... but I still didn't think of balding.
Finally I noticed that my bangs were just not covering the temple areas even though they seemed to be long enough. At this point I finally realized that the temples were bare because... there just wasn't any hair coming out of there! The front was still where it had always been but the temples were creeping up. Finally I put it all together and realized.. uh-oh... it's happening already!
As I started researching and reading about miniaturization, I realized this explained the thin feeling of my hair in the shower and in the whorl. It also explained the temples. I probably hadn't noticed anything the past few years because my hair is blonde and fine anyway... so miniaturizing temple hairs barely contrasted with the rest of my hair. Now I could see a completely bare spot where there used to be hair, and the hair behind that was thin, short and sparser than it should be.
I have immediately jumped on finasteride, minoxidil and Nizoral. I'm hoping I've got it early enough to strengthen some of the temple hairs and get a thicker feeling back on top. If that doesn't happen, thankfully my hair could still look good styled short as is.
I'm a little unsure of what Norwood rating I'm at. My sides have gone way back and I've lost the low temple protrusion of hair that even some NW5 or 6 still have... but my front peak has not receded AT ALL (compared to pictures of when I was 18) and is still quite WIDE. The temple loss is deep but not very wide yet. I guess I'm a 3...
My hair was always very fine and limp and impossible to style into anything nice so I always kept it short as a teenager and in my early 20s. I did let it grow out longer once when I was 19, but I didn't style it and didn't really pay attention to how thick or thin it looked. I just liked the feeling of longer hair. Besides this short period, it was always short. Unfortunately, I think this stopped me from noticing the early stages of thinning because frankly it still looks quite good cut short.
Late 2009, I was 24, and still hadn't noticed any thinning. I decided I was sick of short hair and I wanted a longer style, so I started to grow it out. My friend was looking at the back of my head one day and said "you're going bald". I thought he was joking, because he likes mean jokes like that, and he was just looking at the "whorl" in the back, where you can always see a bit of scalp. I felt it with my fingers though and I was surprised that it seemed a lot thinner than before. Just the whorl, though, I thought.
As I grew it out a bit longer, I noticed in the shower that it felt different than when I had longer hair at 19. I thought it was the texture... thinner, or more brittle, and just less volume in general. Strange... but I still didn't think of balding.
Finally I noticed that my bangs were just not covering the temple areas even though they seemed to be long enough. At this point I finally realized that the temples were bare because... there just wasn't any hair coming out of there! The front was still where it had always been but the temples were creeping up. Finally I put it all together and realized.. uh-oh... it's happening already!
As I started researching and reading about miniaturization, I realized this explained the thin feeling of my hair in the shower and in the whorl. It also explained the temples. I probably hadn't noticed anything the past few years because my hair is blonde and fine anyway... so miniaturizing temple hairs barely contrasted with the rest of my hair. Now I could see a completely bare spot where there used to be hair, and the hair behind that was thin, short and sparser than it should be.
I have immediately jumped on finasteride, minoxidil and Nizoral. I'm hoping I've got it early enough to strengthen some of the temple hairs and get a thicker feeling back on top. If that doesn't happen, thankfully my hair could still look good styled short as is.
I'm a little unsure of what Norwood rating I'm at. My sides have gone way back and I've lost the low temple protrusion of hair that even some NW5 or 6 still have... but my front peak has not receded AT ALL (compared to pictures of when I was 18) and is still quite WIDE. The temple loss is deep but not very wide yet. I guess I'm a 3...
