The Sooner the better?

[Swooping]

Yes definitely. The sooner the better, it's extremely hard to reverse damage (almost impossible) in male pattern baldness but preventing it is much easier.

[unbalding]

Really? I always hear this, but many of us just can't use finasteride. When that's the case, it's pretty hard to maintain.

Notice I didn't say anything about side effects. RU and minox were working great for me, but I couldn't deal with the sides. I think a PGD2 blocker should be just as successful though without the sexual sides. I'm trying it now, so time will tell.

To the OP: If your hair loss goes untreated it will continue to get worse. Eventually it will get to the point where you will try anything to stop it. Since you're eventually going to try finasteride, or something stronger, it's better to do it now than later. You can probably get away with using a lower dose at this point since you caught the problem early.