Many thanks for the reply! So the DHT arithmetics is not as simple it might first appear.
Regarding Minoxidil, that was surprising to hear. I had the understanding so far that Minoxidil has no preventive value, only very momentary effect, but you indicate otherwise. In fact this is all quite the opposite of what I thought.
Unfortunately from what I have read and can discern, we don't even know how minoxidil works. Generally, all hair loss treatments that work are hormonal in nature since androgenic baldness is always and everywhere a hormonal phenomenon by definition and in fact. Mixoxidil appears to have hormonal aspects as well although this notion is far from well developed. So what does minoxidil do exactly? Does it increase hair counts? Probably. Does it increase anagen? Eh, maybe but probably not much, at least the topical version. Does it make hair grow faster? I haven't found any evidence of this on here or in the literature but oral minoxidil, to me, appeared to have the effect of making hair grow faster and better on the entire scalp and body, albeit muted for me below the neck due to beard removal and laser hair removal below the neck and HRT.
What does finasteride do? That's not much clearer except that it seems to provide very good protective maintenance for many years for many people. A few, mostly young guys might see significant overall hair improvement visually from finasteride or dutasteride but this is not widespread and I don't know of the duration of such improvement. finasteride/duta basically provide us a safe baseline looks-wise for some period into the future and for those using additional meds, it might be additive or even synergistic with certain treatments but again nobody knows if even the big two or big three have any sort of synergism, or additive effects.
I think that topical min and finasteride can provide similar results at least for maybe five to ten years since I used min first for several years and only then after about ten years, did finasteride come out and boy, I didn't pause to think there, I jumped on it and only reluctantly stopped to breed while using minoxidil to maintain. I have a couple of representative pictures maybe. The first is me at 17, right before things went downhill and even though I didn't notice hair loss, by 20, I had an incipient bald spot. So the second pic is maybe me at 44 and then the final one is at 51. So basically, all of that maintenance from 17 or 20, depending upon where one marks the initiation of the balding and treatment process, my remaining hair is due to minoxidil and finasteride. When they stopped working so well, I started having cataclysmic dermatitis, rosacea and my hair started to noticeably worsen again but 30 years isn't bad, especially since I married well and had a beautiful family. I had options from maintaining some of my good looks but I missed trading on them as I did in high school. I will add a current one, from my current regime from yesterday as well at 56, getting on to 57 years of age.
