gaining and losing ground at the same time ???

i have the strong impression that something is working on my temples... I get quite a few thick hairs there now, especially on the right side, and if it kept improving like this, definitely in another year or two I should have complete coverage of my temples... but at the same time, I noticed some thinning beyond my right temple... it's much thicker than my right temple, but less thick than it used to be... can this be explained by the fact that I am only applying topicals on the temples and not on the surrounding areas? also, under my right temple, my sideline just above the sideband is growing like crazy... i could make braids with it if i weren't trimming it... how comes that the side that shows the best improvement in thickness is also the one where the thinned area is "growing"? is minoxidil some sort of double edged sword? like it increases the thickness if the thickness is low, but it decreases it if the thickness is high, effectively bringing everything to some sort of average it aims at?

thank you!