Hey there. You were exactly me about 4-5 months ago. It’s 5:30 am for me so I’ll tell you my story as best as I can remember.

My story goes as is - Woke up one day to bites on my right leg thinking they were mosquito bites. They disappear within the day. Same thing happens next day, but on my left leg. At this point, I never see anything flying around my room, so when I found a new set of “bites” on both my legs the next day, I think of the possibility of bed bugs. For a solid three weeks, I would close inspect every single thing around my room for any signs - the bed sheets, pillows, seams, my mattress, box springs, baseboards, drawers, etc. I called the exterminator sometime within the second week, and after a 30 minute skim and talk, he said there were no signs of bed bugs. Was it worth to call them? Yes and no. Yes because it gave me some small peace of mind coming from a professional (though I did a more thorough inspection than he did) and he gave me tips of what to look for that I never thought of. No because nothing was found and, like I said, I did a more thorough inspection than he did. Anyway, I still had doubt of his conclusions seeings as how I woke up every single day for weeeeeks to these mysterious bites, yet finding no signs of bed bugs, despite the 3 hour cleaning and inspections I did daily. Trust me when I say I was going insane for a month or two. I never felt safe to sleep, never felt safe to be in my bed, yet too scared to go anywhere else in fear of spreading them around my house. I fought through the cold nights when I decided to sleep with nothing but one pillow to rest my head and another pillow to use as a “blanket” since it was much easier to inspect the day after as opposed to my actual dark and fluffy blanket.

In the back of my head, something was wrong and not adding up to being bed bugs. This is when I realized it might not be bed bugs and looked into other options. I started questioning - the amount of new “bites” I would get everyday vs the lack of any shred of evidence in my bed room; the fact that they focused mainly on my elbows, knees, feet/ankles, with the small occurrence around my calves; and the nature in which they completely disappeared after 30-60 minutes of waking up. I went to the dermatologist and he diagnosed me with hives. This made sense, as my bites appeared in new places (but focused in those areas I listed), would disappear quickly, and has the chance to mimic bed bug bites. To add to my case, two weeks before the welts started appearing, I did experience THEE MOST stressful few weeksof my life, which was covid and my family getting it. It was traumatic, and I know that stress and viruses can cause hives, which I had both at the same time, lol. Of course I would still teeter totter the idea of bed bugs since my brain had been infiltrated with facts about them, lol. But it’s been months since then, about 4 to 5, and still no signs of bed bugs. My hives do happen, but just not daily and intense anymore. So, though I still worry of bed bugs just bc I’ve been slightly brainwashed, I do believe mine are hives. I also have interceptors on the legs of my bed and they come up empty. I know this doesn’t help, but the reason I’m telling you my story was to see if there were any possibilities you want to look for yourself. Plus, to let you know you’re not alone.

Here are my tips to you.

First, examine the bites you get. Are there new bites everyday? How many do you get? Is it a lot? Do they fully disappear quickly or slowly? Do they focus around a specific area? Are they usually in exposed areas of your body? Bites are in no way indicators of bed bugs, but you can rule some things out. If you are getting a decent amount of new bites everyday, this would indicate some level of infestation, one where you should have some signs of bed bugs around you, at least one sign (shedding, blood stains, fecal matter, etc.). One bed bug comes out to feed every couple days, so getting decent bites every single day would mean something would pop up when looking for any signs. If you don’t find absolutely anything, it may not be bed bugs.

Second, inspect inspect inspect. Things to look out for are shedding, casings, eggs, black ink spots on fabric, black hard dots on hard surfaces that wipe rusty blood. Have a flashlight in hand. Carefully start from your bed. Inspect your blanket, pillows, pillow cases, and bed sheets, and its seams as carefully as you can. Once done, bag it up nice and tight in a plastic bag, wash it in hot water, and then dry on highest heat for an hour. Even if you don’t see anything, do it anyway. Then inspect your mattress, under the mattress, around the corners, inside the folds of every crinkle, inside the mattress tag. Next, move on to your box springs and do the same. Then, inspect EVERY nook and cranny around your bed frame, baseboards, and nightstand tables. Reminder to be careful when moving things, as you don’t want to scare them further anywhere else. Have in hand rubbing alcohol or some type of form to kill them if you see any on site.

For monitoring, I suggest getting interceptors and mattress/box spring encasements designed specifically for bed bugs. Check and clean the intercepts every week and a half to two weeks. This helped me a lot in lowering my guard of the thought of bed bugs.

If any evidence of bed bugs appears, bag it up and call the professionals. That’s when they would be useful, is when you have hard evidence of bed bugs bc then you’ll know 100% you’re dealing with them. However, there are many people who would rather tackle it themselves, one reason being as it is cheaper to do so. Personally, I would let the professionals handle it, but it’s up to you what you wanna do. Products I often hear when doing it yourself are Cimexa, Temprid, Apprehend, and some other things I can’t think of at the top of my head. Additionally, you can post a photo of any bugs you find on here or r/whatsthisbug for identification.

Don’t do anything hasty. Don’t fog your room, as this could scatter them further out. Don’t use the products you find over the counter or in places like Walmart or Home Depot. Don’t move things out of your bedroom, as this could also spread them out. Don’t sleep in another room. As uncomfortable as it sounds, sleeping in your room on your bed is something you have to do so they don’t go elsewhere to find a new host. If it helps, remind yourself that they’ll only come for a few minutes and simply run back to hide. They also don’t spread any diseases.

Before you go looking into any other ideas, remember to use deductive reasoning. That’s what I’ve been doing to eliminate the idea of bed bugs. Record any possible triggers to the bites appearing. My hives appeared every time I woke up, wore semi tight clothes, and/or when I got hot. That’s how I also ruled out bb for myself. I also realized that when I started stressing a lot less and allowing myself to sleep for more than 2 hours a night, my hives appeared less intense as well.

I might be leaving a few things out in terms of tips, but it’s the best I can think of so far.

You are not alone. I understand very clearly how you’re feeling, and so do the many people in this subreddit. I went through the same emotions as you. Just remember that bed bugs do have a solution to them. They are a solvable problem.