Hi there!
Let me start out by saying that I'm in no way an expert on bearded dragons, by far. I say that because I don't want you to misinterpret what I'm about to say.

I've been following your thread and have been dwelling on it most of the afternoon. I can't pinpoint a possible reason or cause for you beardie's behavior, even though I've done quite a bit of searching thru Google and "The Bearded Dragon Manual" that you mentioned (great book, btw).

Now, I know we all can make mistakes and if a Vet's not familiar with what they're looking for in a fecal exam I suppose they could miss something. Assuming (which I know shouldn't be done) the Vet did know what they were looking for, I imagine that if there were enough parasites present to be causing the problem that they would've been seen, found.

Given the facts that you've presented, blood work, fecal, etc..., it seems as though there's not a physical (bodily) cause for your beardie's condition. That leaves husbandry and/or stress/depression.

No, I'm not saying you're a bad keeper. Not at all. I'm just saying that it seems to me that something's not right somewhere with its setup (temps, lighting, etc...), and/or, it's stressed or depressed for some reason.

Based on what all you've said, I feel that your level of experience is up to par and not the problem, either. And because of that I'm not going to run thru the series of husbandry questions that I normally would because I'm betting that you've already double, triple, checked everything.

My train of thought, which is probably one of the craziest ones I've ever had, was to try to find out the type of chemical produced or increased by stress and see if your blood work results mentioned it, gave any figures for it. The blood work may not be that in-depth, I don't know.

I know that stress in the human body creates or increases a certain chemical that can be detected, however, I was unable to find anything in relation to bearded dragons in that area.

The only other thing I can think of at the moment is it seems like some kind of change was made to the bearide's setup, cage location, room environment change (painted room, etc...{I'm grasping for straws, now}) or something, from the time it went into brumation to the time it came out of it (if it's been acting that way since it came out of brumation). But there again, I'm pretty sure you've already been over that a dozen times.

I'm sorry! I feel practically worthless to you and I don't like it. I feel your pain & share your concern. Whatever you do, don't give up, just keep chugging right along.
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American

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