Am I balding or is this normal?

[Insne]

Hello all, 

I recently turned 30 and paranoia of going bald has set in...pre mid life crisis perhaps. Some background both my father, and my grandfathers on either side have full heads of hair. 
 

I am not sure if this is the normal “swirl” I recently did a new hair cut and just noticed this....and it’s got the gears rolling!

[Marat Ledok]

idk but it looks normal. Maybe the light is too much that s why you can see some skin on your crown. But I think a lot of guys without baldness have crown like this

[Insne]

Hmm I did have the flash on

[ciaus]

Alot of people have a natural spot in the middle of the crown where you can see some skin, before the loss starts or even if they never lose that hair.

But your top pic looks like it may be more than that. You have brown straight hair like me, that's how my crown started to look when it started, Finasteride stabilized it. And if you respond and can tolerate rogaine (minoxidilI) -just in terms of skin irritation if you have sensitive skin, that can definitely help too.

 

That's jumping to the worse case scenario though, If you've never had your hair this short and this is the first time you are seeing it, then maybe you are just naturally a little thin back there. The only ways to know for sure are to wait and see, or go see a dermatologist/hair transplant doctor and have them do a hair scalp analysis where they microscopically check for hair miniaturization. 

[Insne]

This is how it looks with out using a flash on the camera.

[ciaus]

The visible scalp on this last pic you just posted looks normal -but your camera angle, while its still overhead and even closer, it's not as top-down straight overhead as your previous ones. Its kind of looking overhead and forward. Everything else in your last pic being the same, I would re-take the pic with your head tilted back a bit more so that your camera lens is looking directly down at the top of your head like in the previous ones.

[Insne]

Is this any better?

[ciaus]

Sorry just noticed your post here, I put your pics into a side by side comparison, on second look this way #1 and #2 you do have your head at the same tilt, so I guess that was the flash. Surprising how much more scalp is visible in the first pic though -in pic #1 your hair looks like its combed down/laying down more, in #2 like maybe you ran a comb through your crown with an upward motion -or maybe just front to back so its standing up more?  And your last pic there has more of a forward tilt from your neck so that will make your scalp more difficult to see anyway, but it looks good from that angle.

If I didn't see pic#1 I would say you are definitely fine -if you can take some more pics (without the flash) and with your hair combed more down and head in that position, and the crown still looks like #2 and #3, again definitely fine. Hope that helps.

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by ciaus

[Insne]

So I have To wear a bulky headset all day for work when I took the first pics it was after wearing that which is why the hair seemed more pushed down I guess? This photo I took after drying out of the shower so I think that may be way the hair is positioned differently? But yes I can try that!

[Insne]

This was after combing the back portion down and top portion forward, no flash same room/lighting...tried to best do angle. 

[ciaus]

I would say you are on the very front end of some crown thinning MAYBE -you say your family has some pretty good hair, esp if their crown swirls look similar.

The catch is you don't want to start addressing the earliest hints of possible loss with meds because it will make it more difficult to evaluate if they are actually doing you any good -and that's assuming you will be a responder to the meds too, they do work on alot of people but not everybody, but that's getting ahead of things.

I would start keeping a record of pics, same angle/lighting/combing about every 6 or 12 months, in an album so you have an objective record for you and any doctor down the road should it come to that. And bookmark this site, get back to enjoying life and try not to obsess!  ;)

 

[Insne]

Thank you for your insight! I’ll give that a try.

[aaron1234]

Good advice from @ciaus.  Crazy how just a slight tilt of the camera and flash can change your perspective.  You're in your 30's so you're probably not going to become a NW6.  Just keep an eye on things, maybe get a miniaturization analysis to see if Fin is worth starting.

[InterventionalPDoc]

Very unlikely you are balding at this time dude, keep an eye on it for the future if you are really worried. 

Edited August 12, 2020 by InterventionalPDoc