Wondering whether or not bedbug bites hurt? Well, you’re not alone. Imagine sleeping peacefully, while bedbugs start waking up. They’re the vampires of the bug world. The little bloodsuckers. And they want to feast on your blood. They sense you are in the bed and in the deepest of slumbers when they begin to make their way over to you, climbing up the legs of your bed frame and headboard. When they reach your mattress, they crawl under the covers just to be near you. When they finally come in contact with your skin, they chomp down – dinnertime! So just how painful is a bedbug bite? Turns out, for most people, not very.
Painless While Being Bitten.
Although bedbug bites look disgusting, they don’t necessarily hurt right when the bug bites you. Because like a mosquito, bedbugs secrete a bit of numbing anesthetic on your skin prior to biting you. And at the same time, they release an anticoagulant to keep your body from stopping the bleeding (you see, your body wants to stop you from bleeding as a defense mechanism, while the bedbug wants to keep you bleeding so it can feed from you).
So the good news is the actual bedbug bite is usually painless (if it wasn’t, you’d feel the pain, wake up, and kill the bedbug that was biting you). The bad news is often time your body doesn’t react for a day or two, so it usually takes a couple of days to see any symptoms of being bit. So if you’re relying on seeing whether you have any bedbug bites to see if your hotel room has bedbugs, you may want to think of a better way. (see our article: 10 Easy Travel Tips For Avoiding Bedbugs When Traveling).
Not only are bedbugs secreting an anesthetic into wherever you are being bitten, they have really tiny mouths, so the puncture wound is so minuscule that when they do bite you, even without the anesthetic, you’d be very unlikely to even notice it.
Although their mouths are tiny, they are large enough to reach the blood vessels just underneath your skin’s surface, but their mouths are too small to actually go through your clothing. So if you sleep all bundled up, the likelihood of getting bitten is vastly reduced. If you sleep in the buff, then you are a like a “buff”et to bedbugs.
Can Be Painful After the Bite.
Usually you will never feel the pain of a bedbug bite, both during the bite and then after being bitten. But after a couple of days, you may notice some small red welts on your skin, and these welts may itch. This inflammation and irritation is normal. The itchiness comes from an allergic reaction between your skin and the bedbug’s saliva that was injected into it from the bite. For the welt to feel itchy is totally normal.
Typically, the pain one associates with a bedbug bite after they’ve been bitten is caused by the scratching of these welts, which can in turn make them very painful.
If you’ve been bitten, do not scratch. Period. Scratching literally inflames the skin. Think about it, you are scrapping your hard fingernails over a very sensitive part of your skin – a welt from a bite. Is there any wonder that this bedbug bump can became inflamed or start to bleed, or much worse, become infected?
How Long Will Pain Last from Bedbug Bite?
It’s different on a case-by-case basis, but typically the itching or pain will last about a week. The symptoms of the bite (i.e. the swelling, inflammation, welt) normally takes one to two weeks to dissipate, although there are instances, depending on the person where they can sometime take a couple of months to heal.
What Are Some of the Symptoms from a Bedbug Bite?
The symptoms vary from person-to-person. But some of the things you may encounter when bitten by a bedbug include:
- a burning, painful feeling (rare)
- a raised, itchy bump that has a clear or white center. Looks kind of like a pimple.
- a red, itchy bump with a dark center, but is lighter around the swollen surrounding area
- small red bumps or welts that veer left and right or a line
- small red bumps surrounded by clusters of blisters or hives
- Inflamed papule that may erupt or leak when inflamed
- Tiny spattering of dried blood from bites found on sheets or clothing
- Red-brown stains on around bed (or on bed) fabrics from bedbug droppings
- Bedbug skins that have been shed, usually white or clear skins
Do All People React the Same to a Bedbug Bite?
No, not all people react the same to bedbug bites. Everyone has a different immune system and different tolerances to skin irritations. While it is most common for symptoms to not manifest themselves for a couple of days, sometimes the reaction is almost simultaneous. Which means, shortly after being bitten the itchiness can start, which may result in disrupting one’s sleep pattern.
How To Relieve Bedbug Bite Pain.
First of all, don’t scratch no matter how much it itches. We’ve already determined that most often times the pain from a bedbug bite is caused by the incessant scratching and not the bite itself. So don’t scratch. The best defense against scratching would be to get an anti-itch cream or ointment. Below are some specifically for bedbug and other bug bites.
Secondly, if the bites seem especially painful, or your body is covered with them, then you may want to see your doctor. Seeing a doctor is obviously the best solution anytime something out of the ordinary ails you.
But, if you are just looking for some temporarily relief, there are over the counter treatments available in the forms of gels and creams. For the most part bedbug bite treatments are similar to ones you’d get for mosquito bites or flea bites and many of the same products you use for those will work. Remember, you are looking for temporarily relief from the itching (or in some cases pain). Your local pharmacy stocks those products, or for ease you can order them online. Here are a few bedbug treatments you can use from Amazon.
All Natural Emu Joy On The Go Stick
Check out our recommended resources page for additional bedbug treatments.
Do Bedbugs Carry Diseases?
There are no cases that bedbugs transmit diseases from one person to another, nor that they carry diseases. So the likelihood of you getting sick from your bedbug bite (other than an infection that may occur from the scratching of welts) is little to none. And if you’re really not sure, you can always read what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has to say about it.
