Skip to content Skip to footer

Bed Bugs – Symptoms, Causes, & Treatment

Bed Bugs

Bed Bugs – Bed Bugs Are tiny insects that don’t have wings, and they live exclusively on the blood of animals or humans. As per the statistics presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are more than 200,000 reported cases of bed bugs each year in the United States.

As you already know, bed bugs don’t have any wings, so they can’t fly, but they can move quickly. A female bed bug can lay hundreds of eggs in her lifetime. Usually, bed bugs are very small in size. You can easily compare it with an apple seed. 

There are two different types of bedbugs that are known to feed on the blood of humans and animals. Scientifically they are called Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus. They both have been found in the tombs of Egyptians from 3500 years ago.

Causes of Bed Bugs

For the safety of your family and yourself, it is important for you to know about the causes of bed bugs. Bed bugs are highly adaptive, and they can hide in many places depending on the conditions.

Bed bugs can live without food for more than a year. You should be very careful while moving your furniture or luggage because they are very fast and hopping into the stuff of people until they find a nice warm place to live and breed in.

Usually, bed bugs do not care about the cleanliness of the place. If the place is clean, this doesn’t mean that the bed or couch of that place will also be free from bed bugs. 

Many times experts believe that bedbugs can also travel from apartment to apartment through holes in the walls or even wires and pipes. It is possible that if anyone in your building has bed bugs, they can travel through wires and pipes into your apartment.

You should be very careful while buying any second-hand furniture. Experts prohibit buying second-hand mattresses and couches. They are the best places for bedbugs to hide. 

Common places Of bed bugs

There are a few common places where you can easily find bed bugs. It all depends on the person responsible for those places. If that possible person is careful enough, then he\she will regularly inspect that place for bed bugs. 

Hotels and motels

As you know, bed bugs are far more common in places where people come and frequently go with their luggage. Hotels, motels, apartments, dorms, and hostels are a few places where people come and go on a regular basis. 

You don’t know how a person before you lived in his own place. That person might have brought bed bugs along with his belongings. Now you are living in the same place, and if there is any bed bug, it might bite you or hide in your luggage.

You should be very careful when you enter a hotel or motel room. You can easily check the corners of your bed, cabinet, couch for any bed bugs. Even though they are very small, you can easily detect them with the naked eye. You don’t need a microscope or something.

Public transport

Public transport is the second most common place where you can find bedbugs. On a regular public bus, on average more than 500 people travel from one place to another. Even if you are very careful at home, it is possible that you might get bed bugs on your luggage or clothing on public transport.

Taxis

Many people who try to be very careful of bed bugs always use taxi services to travel from one place to another. It has been concluded in many studies that even taxis can be the most commonplace for bed bugs. They can easily hide Under the seat of taxis and later hop on to your clothing or luggage.

Symptoms of bed bugs

Bed bugs usually bite in the night when the person is sleeping. Their favourite place of biting is the one exposed during sleep. 

Bed bugs inject a small amount of saliva into the skin of the host before biting. That saliva has an anaesthetic nature, and it won’t let you feel the bite. If bedbugs are biting a person constantly, that person might develop an allergic reaction to the saliva.

Red and swollen skin

Wherever bed bugs bite, that place of your skin will get red and swollen. It can also develop a dark spot at the centre of each bite and might look like a hive. It is one of the most common symptoms, and almost everyone develops it within a few days of biting. 

As per pest control technology, approximately 50% of people never develop any reaction to a bug bite, but more than 90% of people develop red and swollen skin at the place of biting.

Multiple spots

A bedbug does not bite just once and goes away easily. It takes a few minutes to feed the blood itself after biting. If that process gets interrupted, then the bed bug will come back and try to bite nearby that spot. Due to that process, you might get multiple red spots nearby. It will look like it is arranged in a line or clusters. You should be very careful if you see it and immediately check your bed for bed bugs.

Itching and burning

After a few days of biting, you might develop itching and burn on the skin where bed bugs bite you. Experts suggest you scratch that itchy place. After scratching, bug bites can become infected and bleed at the same time. 

Allergic reaction

Allergic reaction to a bug bite is very rare but possible. There have been a few cases where bed bugs trigger previous allergic reaction conditions, and sometimes it can even make it worse than ever before. 

Treatment of bug bites

Biting by bed bugs is not hard to treat. Doctors usually recommend home remedies to treat the symptoms of biting. 

You can apply over the counter steroid cream to decrease inflammation and itching. It is a very common treatment prescribed by doctors.

Oral medication can also help you lower the skin irritation around the bite. Doctors usually don’t recommend any oral medication for bug biting, but if you are having severe irritation, it is possible that the doctor might recommend you.

Usually, all the symptoms of bug biting go away within one or two weeks. 

Kindly remember that do not scratch bug biting. Scratching may lead to other infections as well. 

Usually, allergic reactions are very rare, but they may happen after a bed bug bite due to other conditions. But if you get any of the following conditions due to bug bites and allergies, you should call 911 and ask for medical assistance.

  • Difficulty breathing
  • Wheezing
  • Swelling in throat or mouth
  • Fever
  • Chills
  • Dizziness
  • Confusion

Takeaways

Bed bugs are a very common problem in the United States of America. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States records more than 200,000 cases of bedbugs.

They are very small insects that exclusively live on the blood of humans and animals. Even though they can’t fly as they don’t have any wings, they can move quickly from one place to another.

Mattress, couches are one of their favourite places to hide. But they can even hide under torn paint, ceiling, holes and pipes in the walls. 

You don’t need any major treatment for bug bites, but if you start itching the place where a bed bug bit you, you might need professional help. Even though allergic reactions due to bedbugs are very rare, they can happen.

What are the best places to hide from a bed bug?

Mattresses, box springs, bed frames, headboards, couches are the best places to hide from a bug. Bed Bugs always enter your home undetected. You can bring them in your home through luggage, used couches, clothing, etc., because bed bugs have small bodies that are why they can hide in tiny spaces.

Why do bed bugs bite at night?

Bedbugs exclusively live on the blood of humans or other animals. Bed bugs are mainly active during the nighttime and bite people while they are sleeping. You may not notice when a bed bug bites you. Bedbugs don’t have any preferred area of the body to bite. They usually bite on the area of skin that is exposed while sleeping.

What can I do to prevent bed bugs?

There are a few To prevent bed bugs. You should be very careful while buying any second-hand furniture. You should closely inspect every corner of the furniture where a bedbug can hide. It is always a wise decision to not buy a second-hand mattress. Whenever you are travelling, always use luggage racks. Kindly avoid keeping your clothes on the floor or furniture of the hotel room.

Leave a comment