When I was a young girl I had long, thick, wavy brunette hair. It was so thick my mom used to ask hairdressers to "thin it out". Then at age 21 people began to point out a little thin spot in the center of my head near the front which grew progressively worse and worse. Of all the things I could have inherited from my dad, male pattern baldness would not have been my first choice.

Ten years before Rogaine was ever approved by the FDA for the treatment of hair loss I was already well…