What is my Norwood stage of baldness? I can’t determine exactly what this is and what kind of treatment is necessary for me.

[Stalker14]

Hi, I am 22 years old, suffering from baldness since 15-16 years. Interested in your opinion, what stage is it on the Norwood scale? I visited two trichologists, they said that this is stage 2, perhaps 2A pattern, but after reading this forum a little and watching videos of different clinics, I began to lean towards the opinion that this is already stage 3, although judging by the pictures on the scale, Norwood is 3 looks worse. Help me decide, my friends also say that this is stage 2, but they most likely want to calm me down. I must say, I have always had a very high forehead.

I also want to ask about the treatment. I tried different shampoos, vitamins, minoxidil for 1.5 years, but none of this helped at all. Six months ago I started taking finasteride, and there was no result either. The doctors told me that finasteride should definitely help, but I have no improvement and even, it seems to me, it has gotten worse. I decided to continue taking the same 1.25 mg per day for now and not switch to dutasteride yet, but maybe it's still worth starting? And will dutasteride help in this case, if the finasteride is powerless? Maybe there is an even stronger drug? Or, in my case, nothing will help?

 

[DoctorHouse]

NW3. Use finasteride and minoxidil to at least try and maintain. Nice cover up.

 

[user394587]

To me this looks like a NW2a, your frontal forelock is a bit thick for a NW3, and it seems that the tip of the forelock is heavily receded. The "big forehead" complaints are usually not because someone has a big forehead, but because they're receding in the atypical Norwood pattern (IE 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a).

I'd continue with the finasteride; you need to wait a least one year on the medication to accurately assess whether or not you are benefiting from it in a lot of instances.

 

[Catagen]

Take a picture further away, plenty of lens distortion going on here.
Also from the first pick you have diffuse going on the midscalp, menaing you could be NW6/5 thinning wise and NW3 hairline wise.

 

[Stalker14]

Take a picture further away, plenty of lens distortion going on here.
Also from the first pick you have diffuse going on the midscalp, menaing you could be NW6/5 thinning wise and NW3 hairline wise.

Some others pictures. I haven't diffuse thinning on the midscalp, but really have a deep recession of hairline. Maybe this is nw3, but in that case, I have at least Norwood 1.5 even in childhood, because my forehead always was extremely high. Why then do everyone tell me that this is stage 2? Just want to console? Okay, I will continue to take finasteride, but so far it seems to me absolutely useless.

 

[NickyA]

I agree with everything user394 wrote, it looks like a NW2A to me, and finasteride would be the best option to tackle the problem. You could also try adding minoxidil 5 to your regime , like the Doctor suggested, but once you start using it for a while, you gotta stay on it forever (It might trigger a heavy shed or you might lose more hair if you quit using it, once your scalp has gotten used to it).

The idea behind finasteride is to halt, stabilize or slow down hair loss, so if you don't see any changes, that's good and normal, don't expect to see regrowth, although some people get regrowth or thickening from it after a while of using it (Between six months to two years). Only thing that you should notice from finasteride use is less daily hair loss.