No it definitely worsened. What is happening is the vertex is diffusing into a greater area, and you are right that the frontal tuft that used to be a solid NW2 is now looking more like a NW2.5 and it looks like it's headed toward 3. That's why it's narrowing and becoming more defined.
It seems that finasteride just is not blocking enough 5ar2 to keep your hair from getting worse.
It's really the only explanation when you think about it. dutasteride held your hair fine for awhile and for this to happen shortly after switching from finasteride to dutasteride...
The lighting does make it difficult to tell, and it would be better if we could see a more closeup version of the first pic, but if you look closely, you can see that you are diffusing all over the scalp. Not to say that the entire top is thinning out, but if you look with your eyes at the top of your head in the second pic, you can see scalp in random spots on it. That's concerning.
The hair also looks a lot less healthy in the second pic than it has in your past pics that you've posted on here before quitting dutasteride. It looks more lifeless.
As for spending your birthday money on it, your call. But I know that this is depressing you and making your hair loss stop would probably help a lot with that, so you probably should do anything you can to get your hands on some dutasteride. You might get lucky and get most of that back, but you should try to make the switch back asap if you are to do so.
