Will minoxidil work for a man of my age?

If you have hair minoxidil can help. I suggest a formal consultation to see what is best for your current state which may need transplant, PRP/A cell or a combination.. Dr. Emer.

Minoxidil should work for anybody who has follicular units present. The longer that the hair has been miniaturizing, the less chance that the minoxidil will be as effective. Most of the time, if hair is present, there are some results. It's important to evaluate minoxidil on a 12-month basis. There might be a slight shed at the initial implementation, but it must be continued for the full 12 months for best results.PRP hair MD.com

Thank you for your question. You are 58-years-old, and noticed over the past 2 years that although you’ve had a good head of hair, you have receding temples you’re not bothered by, and have thinning in the crown area which you are able to cover with hair. You’re asking if minoxidil is of any value for someone your age.
I can help you understand the role of minoxidil in the management of hair loss. A little background: I’m a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon. I have been in practice in Manhattan and Long Island for over 20 years. I am also the founder of TrichoStem™ Hair Regeneration Centers, a system we developed based on a wound healing material we used to help hair transplant patients as part of the management of hair loss strategy. We developed this as a standalone treatment, and it defined a new category of regenerative medicine for the treatment of hair loss. I can offer a certain perspective on how I discuss hair loss with my patients at different stages of their lifetime of progression.
I developed this hair loss treatment called Hair Regeneration that required a different perspective in understanding various categories of people and their relative aggressiveness of hair loss. As you describe yourself as 58-years-old with a decent amount of hair, but now noticing some crown thinning, you are already in the more fortunate group as you did not experience significant hair loss at a much younger age. We are treating males as early as 17 or 18-years-old, all the way into their 70s. We eventually figured out a categorization system to help patients be managed optimally with our system used appropriately.
Generally, minoxidil was originally a blood pressure medication, which was found to have a great side-effect of hair growth. Over time, we’ve learned that minoxidil, although the process is not fully understood, appears to have some stimulatory effect on hair growth, and some effect on prolonging the growth cycle. However a couple of things to be aware of are there is a limitation on how effective it can be, and as a treatment it is fairly safe. Minoxidil is over-the-counter, and applied once a day. It couldn't be less problematic in terms of anything else you do, but I do suggest you get a view of the top of your head.
Often when people come to us with similar questions and concerns, we take our photos from a view of the top of the head, because when you look in the mirror, you see the front. Maybe you get a side view mirror, or the last time you were at the hairstylist you noticed that thinning area getting larger. It’s important to understand when you think of a temporal recession and the crown area, you have this area of the mid scalp. Generally, people tend to underestimate the degree of hair loss. Hair loss affects both men and women throughout the scalp, and is expressed in variable ways among men.
It might also be a time for you to consider a DHT blocker such asfinasteride. Finasteride is currently a controversial drug, but it’s not in the experience of myself and most of my colleagues. A DHT blocker has a role in management of hair loss, so it is something we do prescribe. It is important for you to get a realistic understanding of the degree of hair loss, and the amount of how aggressive you want to be about management.
Comparing a DHT blocker to minoxidil, the DHT blocker can more significantly impact the longevity of the hair follicles, which is also seen with our Hair Regeneration treatment. When we've taken patients who were on finasteride for a long time, anywhere from a few years to 10-15 years, then we did our Hair Regeneration treatment. Hair Regeneration is briefly a combination of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) derived from your own blood combined with Acellular matrix. Over the past 7-8 years, I developed an algorithm and a system to help stimulate hair growth. The distinction here is that finasteride will allow the hair follicles to live a little longer, so it is my observation that it is more effective than minoxidil.
That said, we use Hair Regeneration which reactivates hair that isn't growing, thickens thinning hair, and prolongs the lifespan of the hair growth cycle. The synergy has worked out very favorably - patients who were still on finasteride, but weren't growing as much hair until after we treated them with Hair Regeneration. I think that in a way, your goal is to maximize coverage.
I always explain to my patients that hair loss is progressive, so medical interventions from pharmaceutical, regenerative, stem cell-based technologies, or surgical are all about maximizing coverage. When you are at a point of threshold, you are seeing enough hair loss that you want to do something about it, you want to do everything you can to extend the longevity of coverage, and maximize coverage. Scalp coverage is a function of hair density and thickness of the individual hairs. If you’re on minoxidil, and you don't use finasteride, the progression may go on faster than it otherwise would with finasteride. If you choose to do everything you can, then a treatment like Hair Regeneration can have a value in synergizing everything so you can get maximal coverage for a longer duration.
Again, to answer the question about minoxidil, it is safe and worth trying. A lot of the minoxidil studies have shown that to be the case, especially with slow progression in the crown area. It tends to be fairly effective, but it’s only one tool. I think if you look at yourself not only at the top of your scalp, but look at your scalp with your hair wet, you might realize you have more extensive loss than you previously thought, so it’s best to be proactive rather than reactive. I hope that was helpful, I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for your question.

This is a great question and far more complex than it might seem. Yes, Minoxidil could help and yes age is absolutely a factor. Minoxidil becomes even more important to consider with advancing age. Hair thinning as one approaches the 60s and 70s is often less truly androgen driven. The diagnosis of senescent alopecia (SA) needs to be considered and it can often respond to minoxidil. Senescent or age related alopecia is often forgotten by physicians. It mimics genetic hair loss almost perfectly so is easily misdiagnosed as genetic hair loss. The genes driving it are very different.Androgenetic alopecia tends to start somewhere between age 8 and age 50 - at least that has been the traditional view. Hair thinning that occurs later has a high likelihood of representing senescent alopecia. (Of course other types of hair loss may also occur after age 60 and genetic hair loss and senescent alopecia can overlap). A study by Karnik and colleagues in 2013 confirmed that these two conditions (AGA and SA) are truly unique. The authors studies 1200 genes in AGA and 1360 in SA and compared these to controls. Of these, 442 genes were unique to AGA, 602 genes were unique to SA and 758 genes were common to both AGA and SA.
The genes that were unique to AGA included those that contribute to hair follicle development, morphology and cycling.
In contrast to androgenetic alopecia, many of the genes expressed in senescent alopecia have a role in skin and epidermal development, keratinocyte proliferation, differentiation and cell cycle regulation. In addition, the authors showed that a number of transcription factors and growth factors are significantly decreased in SA. The concept of senescent alopecia is still open to some debate amongst experts. The studies by Karnik give credence to the unique position of these two conditions. But studies by Whiting suggested that it is not so simple as to say anyone with new thinning after age 60 has SA - many of these are also more in keeping with androgenetic alopecia. As one ages into the 70's, 80's and 90's - hair loss in the form of true senescent alopecia becomes more likely.

Reference
Karnik et al. Microarray analysis of androgenetic and senescent alopecia: comparison of gene expression shows two distinct profiles. J Dermatol Sci. 2013.

It has to do with the level of miniaturization and stage of hair loss rather than age. If your hair loss is already matured, you may not see any improvement from the medication, but if you still have significant miniaturization or hair loss, you are more likely to be benefited from minoxidil.  Find a good hair doctor and have a consultation and make sure you are getting a miniaturization study during that visit too. 

You can use minoxidil to slow down your hair loss in the crown area. You may not see much hair growth but it helps with keeping your hair in that area. Your age is not a factor. 

The use of minoxidil on frontal hairline of male may increase the thickness of the hair behind the hairline but it will not address and hairline recession