u/Hitchfucker

I’ve been trying topical minoxidil for a little over a week now. I know that shedding is apart of the process normally but it feels like I’ve been losing way too much. A problem I’m running into is that I have long curly hair (although it’s been getting less curly since starting min). It’s very hard for me to properly part my hair and it ends up looking terrible. I fear that most or at least a lot of it is getting into my hair any not the scalp. Is it true that getting into the hair and follicles could damage them? If so I don’t know how to deal with applying it topically.

I’m 24/male and I’ve been fearing that my hairline has been receding for awhile now. I haven’t been sure for a while now but recently it seems to be hard to ignore or be uncertain of and I’m feeling less and less confident as it seems to thin. I asked my doctor about it (though this was just a regular doctor and not a dermatologist) and she said to wait a bit but at this point I’d prefer to avoid risks. I’ve just started to take topical min a week ago (I also tried it for a few weeks beforehand but stopped for a week before scheduling that doctors appointment). So far I have mostly just been applying it to the temple/forehead/top of the hairline area.

I just wanted to ask and be certain, I know that if I stop taking minoxidil that after a few months my progress would be lost, but if I did stop is it possible that I will lose even more hair than I initially had or even would have lost at this point? I’ve heard differing opinions but I just wanted to know if using min could be a sort of hostage situation where the second I stop using it I could lose most or all my hair in the areas where I apply it. I don’t care if it were to bring me back to the amount of hair I already had since at least then it wouldn’t make the situation worse. This is also partially why i’m holding off on applying it to my entire scalp for now and just focusing on the really recessive points.

Thank you for any possible insight and sorry if this was poorly worded.