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Do bed bug bites have pus in them: Signs You May Have Bed Bugs

by alexxlab

Signs You May Have Bed Bugs

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Is It A Bed Bug Bite?

The clearest indicator that you have a bed bug infestation, and the one that most people first notice that tips them off, is the presence of bed bug bites on your skin. However, to the untrained eye, telling a bed bug bite apart from other bumps or bug bites can be difficult. Different people react to bed bugs bites in different ways, so identifying them with certainty may not be possible.

Some people get tiny red dots without a rash while some experience the opposite – huge red welts with heavy inflammation around each bite.
If you’re unsure about what’s bugging you, here are some tips to help you determine whether or not you’re dealing with bed bugs:

  • Count the number of bites you have. One isolated bite is usually from a spider or ant, but groups of several bites narrow your options down to fleas, mosquitoes, or bed bugs.
  • Touch the bites to test their firmness. Flea and mosquito bites are generally soft with ulcers or pustules in the center. If the bites are firm, puffy, or filled with pus, you are likely dealing with bed bugs.
  • Look for patterns in the bites. Are they spread out seemingly at random, or do they seem bunched into groupings? While mosquitoes and fleas generally bite and feed on one area at a time, bed bugs will often feed by biting multiple times in the same area. If your bites are in groups of three or more, chances are high it’s bed bugs.
  • Examine where the bites are located on your body. Fleas have no wings and have to jump, and so bites on humans are most commonly found on the feet, ankles, and legs.
  • Mosquitoes bite on parts of the skin that are exposed while you’re outdoors, mainly arms and legs while wearing short sleeves. Bed bug bites are most commonly found on the skin left exposed while sleeping, which can often mean most of the body. If the bites are congregated closer to your face, it is most likely bed bugs.

Other Warning Signs Of Bed Bugs

Here are some common indicators that alert homeowners to a bed bug infestation within their home:

  • Tiny black streaks or specks found on bedding or clothing. If you’ve found small black streaks on your mattresses, box springs, bed frames, baseboards, carpets, or furniture, these are likely droppings left by bed bugs.
  • Small white sheddings. Bed bugs shed their skin as they develop, and these skins could be what you’re encountering around your home.
  • Small white eggs. While minuscule, bed bugs leave small (1mm) white eggs in homes they infest. While individual eggs can be nearly impossible to recognize, many times eggs can be found in batches, making them more visually distinctive.
  • Live or dead bed bugs. Bed bugs are about 1mm long when they first hatch. They are white in color with six legs. As they grow into adults, their color changes to brown or black, although they can have a reddish tint if they’ve recently fed on blood.

While they are most active in the fall, holiday traveling can often lead to bed bug infestations. If you’ve had family and friends visiting over the holidays, they could have inadvertently brought bed bugs inside with them. On the other hand, if you were visiting family and stayed in a hotel or motel during your trip, they might have hitched a ride in your luggage and made their way into your home.

Why Bed Bugs Require Professional Help

Bed bugs are notoriously difficult to treat pests for homeowners due to their small size, fast-breeding capacity, and ability to get into almost any area of your home. Worse, if you do not treat the entire infestation in one go, you can rest assured that it will only come back stronger in a matter of months, weeks, or even days.

Don’t let bed bugs keep you up at night. If you’re suffering from a bed bug infestation, don’t hesitate to call a professional service for help.

At Pestmaster® Services, we have spent decades keeping homes across America free from bed bugs using environmentally friendly Integrated Pest Management practices. If you have an infestation, contact us today for more information about how a professional bed bug control service can stop bed bugs in their tracks.

Bed bugs: Diagnosis and treatment

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what they look like, what they eat, reproduction, danger of bites, signs of infection of the premises

SES 4 DEZ

In this material, prepared by specialists of the sanitary service of SES 4 DEZ, you will find answers to the following questions:

  • What bed bugs look like;
  • What do they eat;
  • Breeding of bed bugs;
  • Symptoms and danger of bed bugs;
  • Breaking into premises;
  • Treatment of bites;
  • Methods of destruction;
  • Preventive measures.

If you would like to call the sanitary service for the destruction of bedbugs, go to this page.

What bed bugs look like

There are three types of bedbugs all over the world, but only one is currently registered in Russia – Cimex lectularius L . The adult is reddish-brown in color, has a pair of wings, but does not fly, and has microscopic hair. The segments of the belly are pronounced, which is clearly visible in the photographs. It can grow up to 4-5 millimeters in length and 1.5-3 millimeters in width. Newly hatched individuals are translucent in color and are called larvae.

Bed bug photo

If the individual is in a state of hunger, then the width of its belly corresponds to its length, but may lengthen after the consumption of blood. Then the individual acquires an oblong shape and becomes brown-brown.

Bed bug size change after blood saturation

They have a triangular head ending in a trunk through which blood enters the insect’s body. During the bite, a special substance is injected into the wound, which prevents the occurrence of pain in a person for several hours after the bite. Distinctive features from fleas or cockroaches: they move only on the ground (do not jump like fleas), no wings, the belly is segmented.

What do bed bugs eat and how long do they live

Bed bugs feed on blood. They do not depend on water, for their existence they need water vapor in the air. In warm habitats, individuals will try to feed on blood every 5-10 days, despite the fact that they can go without food for up to 5 months. In cold conditions, bed bugs can live without food for up to a year. Thus, if you take furniture out of the room in the cold and leave it for several weeks, the number of bedbugs will not decrease. In the process of feeding, they make more than one bite throughout one blood vessel, so the location of bites on the body is a characteristic feature of bedbugs. On them you can trace the movement of the insect through the human body. Bites are located mainly on hairless parts of the body.

Photo of bed bugs on a mattress. Larvae (yellow), eggs (white), adult bugs (red) and traces of vital activity (black dots and shed shells) are clearly visible

Reproduction

Breeds in heated rooms all year round. The female lays from 1 to 12 eggs daily, placing them in the crevices of walls, wallpaper, furniture, bedding, etc. Places of concentration of bedbugs have an unpleasant odor. After consuming blood, the female can lay up to 20 eggs. Throughout life, the female lays from 300 – 500 eggs. Due to the relationship between feeding (blood consumption) and oviposition, females feed much more intensively than males. A larva (nymph) hatches from a laid egg within 3-4 days; it differs from an adult individual only in the absence of the ability to reproduce, in size and the need for molting. The larvae consume less blood, but because of their quantity, they pose the same danger to humans as an adult. In addition, the larvae are not able to inject an analgesic substance into the human body, so their bites are painful and begin to itch immediately.

Photo of bed bug and its larvae

Signs of bed bugs

Bed bugs are predominantly secretive, nocturnal. Peak activity is reached from 10 pm to 6 am. As a rule, they hide in the most secluded dark places. However, if they starve for a long time, they can attack in the daytime. Their presence is primarily detected by bites and feces that look like grains of black pepper. Most of the time they spend in their colony, where they are difficult to detect, they leave the colony only for feeding. With a low number they live in the area of ​​​​the bed, with a large number – they also settle on cabinet furniture, books, picture frames, baseboards, window sills, under carpets, under furniture upholstery. They are found primarily in communal facilities – dormitories, hotels, hostels, apartments – much less often in medical and children’s facilities – sanatoriums, hospitals, boarding houses.

Watch a video of a proper room inspection

Watch this video if you want to know where bedbugs are hiding in your apartment, how to inspect a sofa, bed and other sleeping place, whether you need to inspect adjacent furniture. What preventive measures should be taken. Everything is very clear and with useful recommendations from SES 4 DEZ specialists.

Bite hazard

As a rule, their bites are found on parts of the body that are not protected during sleep – the face, arms, neck, and sometimes legs. After a bug bite, there is a burning sensation, itching, purulent diseases may occur in the places of combing. They cause skin rashes, allergies and have a traumatic effect on the human psyche. Dangerous for children due to the possibility of calculating bite sites and introducing pathogenic bacteria. More severe manifestations of itching and allergic reactions. There is a risk of iron deficiency anemia. For the same reasons, they are dangerous for pregnant women. Insect excrement may contain pathogens such as hepatitis B, plague, typhus, relapsing fever, Q fever, tularemia, yellow fever, leprosy, tuberculosis, filariasis, syphilis, leishmaniasis. There is a risk of anaphylactic shock.

Photos of bed bug bites

Bite treatment

The most important thing is to stop insect bites. As a rule, all symptoms will go away on their own within one or two weeks, except for serious cases in which it is worth consulting a doctor: severe allergic reactions, severe itching, suspected infection, etc.

Methods of entry into the premises

  • adults or their eggs may be brought into the premises on clothing or luggage;
  • entry into the premises of an object that is a colony of bedbugs – furniture or clothing;
  • independent entry into the premises from adjacent contaminated objects through ventilation ducts, pipes;
  • wild animals can introduce bedbugs and other parasites

Bed bug killers

  • pesticides;
  • insulation;
  • thermal effect;
  • destruction of contaminated items;

What to do in cases of infection

If you suspect that you have bed bugs in your home, the best thing to do is call a sanitation professional. But if you want to try to get rid of bedbugs on your own, then in this case we have compiled instructions for you and prepared a list of drugs that we use to treat residential premises, and you can see how to prepare the room before the arrival of the master here.

Photos of bed bugs

Prevention of colonization of the premises by bedbugs

  • regular sanitization of premises using a vacuum cleaner;
  • regular washing of bedding and clothes;
  • inspection of sofas, carpets, for traces of the vital activity of bedbugs;

If you find bedbugs in the room, find their bites on the body – do not wait until they settle throughout the room and hard-to-reach places, call the sanitary service specialists by phone: 8 (812) 911 04 24 . We will promptly come to you (on the day of the call or at any time convenient for you by prior arrangement) and solve the problem with bedbugs. Service prices can be found here.

Bedbug bites (chemipterosis) consultation treatment in St. Petersburg at the ID-CLINIC medical center

Bedbug bites (chemipterosis) consultation treatment in St. Petersburg at the ID-CLINIC medical center

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Many people associate bed bugs with slovenliness and an asocial lifestyle, but unfortunately, anyone can become their victim. Small insects easily enter the apartment from the basement or a neighboring dwelling through ventilation shafts and through cracks in the walls. In addition, you can bring the insect home in the folds of your clothes, and encounter bedbugs while traveling, especially when renting private accommodation and traveling to countries with unfavorable sanitary conditions.

Peculiarities of bedbug attack

Bedbugs are blood-sucking insects, most often they attack children and women with thinner skin. Bites can be on any part of the body, but favorite areas include the face, wrists, elbows and knees.
Another distinguishing feature of bites is their linear arrangement. To get enough human blood, the bug will bite the skin several times, moving along one line. This is due to the characteristics of the jaw apparatus of the insect.

How a bug bite manifests itself

The patient develops itchy red spots on the skin, which are arranged in a single chain. The size of these spots varies from 4-5 mm to several centimeters. Most often, a person notices marks on the skin in the morning, since bedbugs are nocturnal and attack during sleep.
The redness is accompanied by intense itching, which irritates the patient and makes him comb the skin until it bleeds. After scratching, the redness at the site of the bite increases in size, and the swelling increases.

Why bed bug bites are dangerous

Bed bug bites, known in the medical literature as chemipterosis, can cause a severe allergic reaction to a poisonous substance in insect saliva. It most often occurs in young children and allergic patients. Puffiness on the skin goes beyond the bite, and there are also systemic manifestations in the form of edema of the respiratory tract, anaphylactic shock. The intensity of the reaction depends on the individual characteristics of the person and the number of bites.

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What to do if you get bitten by bedbugs

If you notice red, itchy spots on your skin that look like bites, you should consult a dermatologist or parasitologist. The doctor will determine what caused the unpleasant manifestations, and select effective methods of treatment to quickly remove itching and redness of the skin.
For patients who do not have time to visit the clinic, an online consultation service is available. In a video conversation, you can ask the doctor questions of interest and get recommendations.

How bed bug bites are treated

Symptomatic treatment is sufficient for chemipterosis. Antihistamines and cooling agents are used to relieve painful itching. If scratching to blood and ulcers appear on the skin, treatment with antiseptics and local antibiotics may be required.
In a severe form of chemipterosis, antiallergic drugs are prescribed in tablets and injections. Usually they are used in the early days for the rapid relief of allergic reactions and the prevention of complications.
The main task of the patient is to treat the dwelling from insects. Thermal treatment of bed linen and clothes (boiling, washing, ironing), chemical treatment of a bed and other furniture. In some cases, only sanitary services will help to cope with insects.

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To consult an ID-Clinic dermatologist online or offline, leave a request in the feedback form on this page. Our administrator will call you back as soon as possible to clarify the details and arrange an appointment.

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  • Kozminsky Evgeniy Borisovich

    Dermatovenerologist,
    Syphilidologist,
    Doctor of the highest category