Fear of the 'shed'

[fancypants]

Hi guys! I'm new here and plundering for advice

first a bit of background:

I finally bit the bullet the other day and visited the doctors about the old noggin; and he confirmed my worst fear- that I 'might' be going through the 1st stages of MPB or my hair 'might' just be naturally thin... He also said there's nothing to be done about it if it's happening and I should just man up (he said it nicely, but I'm paraphrasing for the sake of validating my desire to punch him in the face)

I'm 22 and it's difficult to tell because my hair is both naturally thin and naturally curly, but I seem to be losing more hairs in showers, it's much easier to pull hairs from the top of the head rather than the sides, and I'm generally just getting that feel. Both my grandparents are went bald very early and so has my uncle; so I'm pretty sure it's a matter of when rather than if. My hairline's also high but It's always been high and I don't think there's much change if any- the fringe does seem to be 'falling' differently now, though.

In short, my hair is good at the moment- Even my girlfriend says it's fine, and I've roped her into enough head massages that she's be the 1st to know. But I know it's starting and it's only gonna get worse and worse.

My main issue is that I want to try and prevent it getting much worse for the next decade or so it takes for something more permanent to enter the market, or my baby face ages enough to stop MPB looking freaky on me (at least 'til I can actually grow facial hair to compensate)... I feel Finasteride's the best option right now- but I'm scared of the 'shed'! So scared of the shed...

How have you guys found the shed to be? have any of you gone from unnoticeable hairloss to seeing it day to day within months of taking the big bad pill? Have any of you not experienced the shed at all?

for those of you that started taking measures later when you noticed more hairloss- would you take it as soon as you got a sniff of MPB, like I'm thinking? Or do you feel the cons outweigh the pros when MPB is unnoticeable to the naked eye?

Any advice and anecdotes would be appreciated- it's quite a lonely journey to be going down.