I have using minoxidil for 1.5 months now, and I randomly snapped a photo of my hairline and I’m seeing tiny tiny black hairs, not sure if those has been there before or if minoxidil is actually working.
Most people would call your hairline mature, not cooked.The point is you are NOT bald and that is obviously not a bad thing. Minoxidil has troubles in general bringing hairline changes but transplants are perfect for them. Still, why not give topical minoxidil a try if you have no sides to speak of, don’t stop it but just give it some time. Minimum of 6 months. Stop hovering over r/tressless, they all upvote the hyper-responders so you get a false hype of expectations. Some dudes there grow hair in 2 weeks, fucking unheard of. Just because you have not grown anything in 2 weeks, does it mean it is not working, no! Minoxidil DOES work, even if moderately (not poor regrowth nor dense regrowth, somewhere in between) to be honest per multiple studies, but even better when used in conjunction with tretinoin and finasteride. Roughly 1/2 of get good regrowth, 10% of them are near hyper-responders. So 1/2 do NOT respond in a clinically significant manner, but if you hop on tretinoin/microneedling (I would say tret is better) you increase that chance. Even then, you have not lost much and barely a norwood1, so why worry/bother, live your life if you are on finasteride/dutasteride.
ps: Keep in mind tretinoin needs a prescription and that its efficiency in boosting topical minoxidil is not an endorsement of it, the text above in part or in whole is NOT a medical advice.