NW1 is pre-hair loss

[25 going on 65]

I know I can't be the only one who thinks this when people use the term NW0....NW0 does not exist on the NW-Hamilton chart

[PatientlyWaiting]

I wish there was some sort of Norwood online calculator where you post a picture of your hair loss and your norwood would be identified.

[Aames]

NW1 indicates some temple recession. Several members here tell me that is where I am at if you want to look at a real-life picture.


THIS is a NW0, no temple recession, where I hope to be (again) someday:

[Dav7]

NW1 indicates some temple recession. Several members here tell me that is where I am at if you want to look at a real-life picture.


THIS is a NW0, no temple recession, where I hope to be (again) someday:

I wasn't aware that there was a NW0. What NW are you at now Aames if you don't mind my asking?

[burtandernie]

Yeah NW 0 is just teenage hairline with zero loss. Some men though never had hairlines like that so its just from where you started with zero loss. Our current treatments suck way too much to get that back Im not sure propecia could even keep that if you started before it happened.
DHT and maybe even T need to be stopped just about completely to stop MPB forever so propecia is not good enough and plenty of DHT still left even with it. With the dangers though I dont know if you want 100 percent DHT inhibition internally though.

[burtandernie]

Yeah NW 0 is just teenage hairline with zero loss. Some men though never had hairlines like that so its just from where you started with zero loss. Our current treatments suck way too much to get that back Im not sure propecia could even keep that if you started before it happened.
DHT and maybe even T need to be stopped just about completely to stop MPB forever so propecia is not good enough and plenty of DHT still left even with it. With the dangers though I dont know if you want 100 percent DHT inhibition internally though.

[25 going on 65]

The thing that throws people off about the NW chart is that it is just a bunch of rough sketches scribbled out by some guy a long time ago. If you look at the NW1 sketches, the bird's eye view does not even have the same hairline as the profile view (the profile view = straight hairline rounded at the corners, the bird's eye = corner recession with no visible temple points)
The idea is not to show you what your hairline looks like (this varies for everyone with or without MPB)....it is to give a rough chart of the progression of MPB. NW2 = beginnings of recession, NW3 = deep recession, NW2A and 3A = forelock loss, IIIV and IV = crown loss, etc.

TBH most of us do not fall into these categories neatly. For example I say "NW2 diffuse" to describe my loss, but trying to describe things more exactly I am like a 2 on the right side in terms of recession, a 1.5 on the left, high density in the mid anterior, diffusion in one corner and along the part on the other side, etc etc

As for the NW0 theory, I do not think children are a useful standard for judging a man's hairline. Even a kid with no MPB gene is probably going to have a different hairline at 25 than at 15

[burtandernie]

Not true I know quite a few guys that at age 35 have hair of a 15 year old. I still have nearly the same hair I had at 18 or 20 so any hair loss has to be taken into account. I think hair loss starts much before that NW 2 picture shows and with how little detail it has its impossible to even tell how bad that is.
The hair of a kid is where everyone's hair started so anything past that is really lost hair IMO.

[25 going on 65]

The hair of a kid is on a kid's head and face, both those things change with development. You may know 35 year olds who have hair like some 15 year olds, but not quite the hair THEY had when they were 15. Unless they stopped developing at 15 I guess

Hair loss does start before NW2, that is just the earliest stage of loss the chart is meant to represent. They could have had 70 stages instead of 7 and every pic would show a microscopic change, but the chart is just a rough guide

And again a lot of guys do not really follow this pattern. The more I look at the NW2 pic the more I feel like it shows deeper recession than what I actually have on either side, but my pattern is mainly diffuse, so there is not really a NW I can properly fit into....I just give a number for convenience

[burtandernie]

That chart really should be trashed and someone should make a new one with more detail and different routes that MPB can take that is accurate. As most things I guess no one feels like doing it.
Its certainly outdated and inaccurate at the very least not to mention really old. Not everything that is old needs to just stay how it is because of how well it works like this chart for example.