Bed Bug Bites Treatment

Sometimes you can have sleepless nights and wake up scratching nearly every part of your body. The first question you should ask yourself is whether your bedding is clean. They could be having bed bugs! You should never ignore this because bed bugs thrive even in fancy rooms that you may think are clean. But How do you know if you have bed bugs? Can you see bed bugs? Well, It is not that simple. Before conducting Bed Bug Bites Treatment, you should know about bed bugs. Seeing bed bug pictures on the internet will not help you. These pests are on average 5mm in size and mostly come out only at night. Prevention is better than cure.

Therefore, the knowledge of How To Prevent Bed Bugs, How To Check For Bed Bugs, Signs Of Bed Bugs, How To Kill Bed Bugs and how to treat their bites is of utmost importance. But first you need to know What do bed bugs look like?

What do Bed Bugs Look Like?

Bed bugs are normally reddish brown. They have flat bodies and feed entirely on blood from their hosts. They can infest any part of your homes and more so your wardrobe and bedding.

They are tiny in size usually between 3mm to 7 mm. They do hide in very narrow cracks in furniture, children’s toys, clothes and some other areas that you cannot even imagine. Therefore, knowing how to check for bed bugs and identifying signs of bed bugs around you is the first step towards protecting yourself, your family and your homes.

What Causes Bed Bugs?

Most people think that bed bugs come because of being dirty. This could be true but is not entirely the answer to the question What causes bed bugs? In most cases, bed bugs are found in public places like theater and hotel rooms. They don’t have wings to fly around so they are dependent on carriers. This simply means that they are passed from one person to another through luggage, clothes, coats, purses, etc. Therefore, always be careful whenever you are in contact with these things because if they attack you, you become a new carrier.

You Might also be Interested in, How to Get Rid Of Bugs

Bed Bug Bites Treatment

In the event that bedbugs have infected you, you should never worry. Even though bed bugs feed on your blood they have not been found to be responsible for the transmission of blood borne diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C etc. There are fast and easy ways of getting rid of the bed bug bites. First, you may require items like towel, anti-itch cream and an anti-bacterial soap. Once you have these materials, you can follow some easy steps as follows:

• Wash the affected area of the skin with warm water. Use soap and hand wash the area gently.
• Once done, rinse the area with warm water thoroughly
• Pat the area gently with the towel
• Do not scrub your skin at all
• Apply the anti-itch cream gently according to the instructions of using the cream.
• Place an ice pack on the affected for 15 minutes to help reduce the swelling

With these measures, the affected areas will heal after few days; let us say two days.

Now that you have taken care of the bed bug bites. You should also take care of the Bed Bug itself! For taking care of bed bugs, you need to know more about them. Such as:

How to Check For Bed Bugs?

When bed bugs invade your home, you can notice that in many ways. This ranges from physical observations of your environment for signs of bed bugs to the studying bed bug symptoms like the kind of bites that appear on your skin. Some of the signs of bed bugs that are simple to identify and may be used in detecting them are as follows:

• Check for red welt on your skin carefully. You will see a smaller circle where the bed bug broke your skin and these might be the only bed bug symptoms that you experience.
• When they bite, you shall see three clusters of bites on your skin or the bites may be arranged in a linear manner. This happens mostly in the areas of your body covered by t-shirt and shorts.
• The bed bug symptoms that you may experience may vary according to your body’s response to bed bug bites. This may range from nothing at all to large wheals and blisters. Scratching may cause these lesions to become infected and even though this is also part of the spectrum of bed bug symptoms, identification becomes more difficult.
• Having knowledge of what do bed bug bites look like is also important as most people are unable to differentiate them from bites of other pests like mosquitos and fleas. The pattern of bites and part of body affected may be a guide in differentiation.
• Check for any insect shells around your bed and furniture, traces of blood on your bed sheets and anything resembling fecal materials on the walls, cracks, gaps, and seams of mattresses, edges of your boxes and on furniture. These are very important signs of bed bugs and provide the best answer to the question that how do you know if you have bed bugs?
• You can as well use traps to immobilize the bugs especially in cases where you are not sure of any infestation.
• For example, you can put sticky traps on the walls and windows, under each leg of your bed and on the direction to your bathroom. If they are there, you will find them stuck the nest day. This is normally a clue that the bed bugs come at night.
• In the modern times, you can use sniffer dogs that can detect the presence of bed bugs. You can either rent or ask a professional to help with.

How Do You Get Rid of Bed Bugs?

Bed bugs are quite tricky to get rid of in the house, especially if you are wondering how to get rid of bed bugs for good. It is not a simple task as compared to exterminating other common pests. You can’t just use your favorite bed bug spray or bed bug powder and hope the job is done. This is because they like hitch hiking. It is even trickier when your neighbor has them but he/she is doing nothing about them. Therefore, it is good for you to consult with your neighbors and have a communal way of getting rid of the bed bugs. This would turn out more successful.

At most times, the best measure is to consult a pest control professional who specializes in the extermination of bed bugs. He/she should be able to carry out the correct procedures that will eventually bring peace back to your home. This is because the chemicals used in a bed bug spray or bed bug powder may be hazardous to your health or your children’s health if used in such close proximity (e.g. your bedroom).

However, if you are planning to do it yourself, you may resort to some of the following home remedies for bed bugs:

• Wash your bedding and garments in very hot water.
• You can also dry clean all your clothes.
• Place all the things that cannot be washed in a transparent plastic bad and put it outdoors in the sun. The temperatures should be able to rise to 120F while it is there.
• You can consult with the pest control professionals to give you the best insecticides for killing the bed bugs
• Alternatively, you can try freezing to kill them. This method can be successfully used in winter even though it is time consuming.
• For the carpets in your house, you can steam them above 120F
• Another option is to buy a bed bug spray that has Insect Growth Regulator (IRG). This gadget is very effective in killing the bed bugs especially where the infestation is small scale
• You can make bed bugs have fewer places for hiding and reproducing by reducing clutter in your home.
• Fill in all the cracks and crevices, which may be the possible areas they inhabit, with bed bug powder.
• Another effective and environmental friendly way to kill bed bugs is with diatomite. This chemical is non-toxic and kills all kinds of insects. These bed bug spray types, are always available for purchase online especially on Amazon.com, are the top of the line among what kills bed bugs.
• You can also use repellents like tea tree oil and neem oil. However, do not use this if you have pets at home.
• Lastly, you can apply oil on your skin while going to sleep to repel bed bugs.

Also Read, Do It Yourself Pest Control

How to Prevent Bed Bugs?

Now that you have known how bed bugs come about, their breeding points, symptoms and possible treatment options, it is good for you to learn how to prevent bed bugs. The most common place where you can get into contact with bed bugs is while traveling.

For example, when you want to book hotels, try to read the reviews other customers have posted online. Most travelers will post true reviews about bed bugs especially when they got infested. Most of these reviews are normally genuine. If the hotel has such negative reviews on bed bugs, kindly avoid them.

Even while in the hotels, look for signs of bed bugs in the rooms. Check the mattresses and bed sheets thoroughly. If there are bed bugs, you will see dark spots. These dark spots are normally tried feces of bed bugs. You can also notice bloodstains, discarded bed bug skins and a sweet almond smell.

Concisely, bed bugs are the trickiest pests to deal with at home. If you notice bed bug signs at your neighbor’s place and suspect an infestation, you had better advise him or her on how to get rid of bed bugs for good, before it is too late and they reach your home. Be careful when in contact with people especially in public places. Always be keen on dark spots on the wall or furniture along with all other bed bug signs so that you may be successful in early detection of the bed bugs in your home. Apart from just calling in a professional pest control company to help you with your bed bug infestation, you may as well use this article as a simple guide to help you get rid of bed bugs naturally.