The danger of bed bugs to humans

One of the most unpleasant types of parasites that pose a serious threat to human health and life are bedbugs. In addition to the fact that bedbugs have a terrible and unpleasant odor, bite their household members, and also provoke the development of scabies and itching, they are also active carriers of various types of diseases. Bedbugs are carriers of infections, viruses, allergic reactions and other phenomena that worsen a person’s general condition, negatively affect health, provoke various consequences and complications, and also lead to death. How bedbugs are dangerous to humans, what serious consequences they cause, and how to deal with these parasites, we will learn in detail in this material.

Bedbugs: what are they?

Bed bugs are the most common type of blood-sucking hemipteran insects, the size of which sometimes reaches 3 and even 5 mm. The large size of a bug directly indicates its age. Bedbugs have an elongated body of a brownish tint with small and dense hairs. These hairs are so small that they can only be seen with the armed eye, that is, under a microscope.

The habitat of house bugs is people's homes, where optimal temperature is maintained and, of course, there is chaos in the house. Although bedbugs are often found even in houses where there is complete cleanliness and order. The optimal temperature in the house leads to the fact that bedbugs actively reproduce. Acceptable temperature indicators include the following values: from +18 to +25 degrees. Such temperature values in the house are ideal not only for humans, but also for bedbugs.

The bedbug family is characterized by reproduction according to an incomplete cycle of degeneration. The female lays eggs, from which after some time the larva hatches, and from it an adult is formed. Bed bugs reproduce very quickly, as a female can lay up to 15 eggs per day. During her life, the female leaves behind up to 500 eggs. In a month, bloodsuckers can multiply so much that numerous colonies are created, which are much more difficult to remove.

Domestic bugs have a special double-longitudinal proboscis, which is used to pierce human skin. Why human? The skin of animals is much thicker than that of humans, so insects of this kind cannot pierce it with their proboscis. The bi-longitudinal proboscis consists of two holes, from which the so-called anesthesia is injected, and the victim’s blood is also absorbed. Colonies grow so quickly that insects have to look for new places to live and eat. This leads to the fact that bedbugs take over more and more living areas if adequate methods of combating them are not carried out.

Having reached the goal, the adult is capable of sucking 7 ml of blood from the victim, which is almost twice the weight of the insect itself.

Prevention of parasites

Every person wants to live in a clean, comfortable apartment without unwanted neighbors in the form of blood-sucking insects. To protect your apartment and upholstered furniture from the appearance of annoying pests, you need to remember the following recommendations:

Clean the apartment regularly. The premises must be wet and dry cleaned using a vacuum cleaner.
The rooms should not be allowed to become cluttered.
If upholstered furniture is not purchased in new condition, but used, then it must be carefully inspected outside and inside before bringing the new thing into the house.
The same applies to antiques, lampshades, as well as mirrors in massive frames and similar things.
After a business trip or trip, things are carefully checked, after which they are thoroughly washed and then ironed.
The sleeping area should be constantly inspected for excrement and other signs of the presence of harmful insects.
During repair, repair or change old things.

Removing bed bugs from your sofa is a long and complex process. The task can be simplified only by timely detection of parasites, before they have time to grow into a large colony. When the settlement is still small, homemade recipes are used. In other cases, it is better to immediately use chemicals or turn to professionals for help. After the upholstered furniture is cleaned, bouquets are laid out around the apartment. They consist of plants that have a pungent and strong odor. This measure can prevent a re-invasion of bedbugs.

Bedbug bites: danger and consequences

Not so long ago, people believed that the main danger posed by bloodsucking insects was the appearance of itching and scabies on the body. But in addition to the fact that bedbugs bite a person, they also feed on his blood. Itching does not occur at the moment of an insect bite, but after it feasts on blood. At the moment of the bite, the insect injects a special substance into the victim’s body that prevents the process of blood clotting, called a kind of anesthesia.

After an insect bite, a small red spot begins to form on the body with a visible dot in the center. It is these spots that cause itching, but a person can attribute these bites to a mosquito attack. People may not be aware of the presence of bedbugs in their apartment, since these blood-sucking insects are active at night and sleep during the day. Before biting a person, a bug chooses a place where the skin is thinner. One bug can make up to 5 bites per night, which often depends on the age of the insect. In addition, some bedbugs are so fastidious that they feed exclusively on the blood of young people or children, where it is much easier to bite through the skin. But this is only an assumption of scientists, which has no practical confirmation.

Let's find out why bedbug bites are dangerous, and what consequences they carry? First of all, bites affect a person’s health and well-being:

signs of inflammation appear at the sites of bites; problems with the psyche and nervous system disorders arise; a person may experience allergic reactions to insect bites, manifested in various forms; a decrease in the level of hemoglobin in the blood, which often happens in children and pregnant women; fatigue and decreased performance.

Bedbug bites can cause an allergic reaction, especially for children, due to their fragile bodies

But these are only the main types of dangers of bites from domestic bloodsuckers. What are the consequences of such bites, and what they can lead to, we will consider further.

Inflammatory processes. One bite from a parasite does not pose a danger to humans, which is not to say about their widespread occurrence. If dirt or infection gets into the wound, the problem gets worse. The wound will turn into an abscess, which may break out until treatment measures are taken. If the abscess is not treated, it can result in inflammation or blood poisoning. Allergic manifestations. A negative reaction of the body can manifest itself in the form of the following signs: sneezing, rash, swelling, runny nose. Sometimes these symptoms make it difficult to recognize bloodsucking insect bites. Allergic reactions can be complicated by the development of anaphylactic shock and Quincke's edema.

Mental disorders. It is normal for a person to not tolerate small blood-sucking parasites. Facts of bites on the body provoke the development of nervous breakdowns, fear, and somatic ailments in a person. Complications of a mental disorder can result in entomophobia.

If on the first night you find several bites on your body, then it is possible that the very next day you will be bitten by a whole colony of these blood-sucking parasites. If this happens, you should immediately consult a doctor who will help you avoid the development of unpleasant consequences of a brutal attack. Due to allergic reactions, a person can die if timely assistance is not provided.

Reasons for appearance

The main reason bed bugs appear in the house is the search for food. A person spends a lot of time in bed or on the sofa, relaxing after a hard day at work. While the victim sleeps, the parasites feed on her blood.

Bedbugs in the sofa go unnoticed for a long time. There are places where pesky insects can hide. The most favorite places for parasites include:

folds of upholstery material;
fabric seams;
tight corners of furniture;
niches and drawers for storing bedding.

Blood-sucking insects will only have to come out of their shelter at night, get enough and again hide in their favorite cracks and seams of upholstered furniture. There are various reasons that provoke the appearance of sofa bugs in an apartment. The most common of them include:

Frequent business trips that involve overnight stays in cheap hotels where sanitary standards are not fully observed.
When using stale bed linen or old blankets and pillows on the train.
Buying an old antique item. It can be any antique item:

book;
painting;
cushioned furniture;
lamp complemented by a soft lampshade.

Moving to an old house.
Using someone else's clothes or purchased secondhand.
Spending the night in an apartment where blood-sucking insects have already taken up residence in the sofa or bed.

In addition, insects can run into the apartment from neighbors, from basements, or crawl into a window from a swallow’s nest if it is nearby. In fact, there are many reasons why sofa bedbugs appear. It is important to respond promptly and, most importantly, correctly to uninvited guests. The sooner all measures are taken, the higher the chance of getting rid of parasites from your furniture once and for all.

The danger of bedbugs for children

Are bedbugs dangerous for children? Parasites very often attack children while they sleep. The next morning, parents may notice small red spots on the child’s skin, which the baby periodically scratches. The immature immunity of a child leads to the fact that bedbug bites for children are more painful and severe.

The most important thing that night bloodsucker bites can lead to in a child is to provoke the development of iron deficiency anemia. Anemia or low hemoglobin affects the child’s health, since this component in the blood performs an important function, transporting oxygen to all cells, tissues and organs. Such bites are also dangerous for pregnant women, who suffer more from low hemoglobin during this delicate period.

Children suffer from bedbug bites to a greater extent than adults. Anemia can also develop in an adult if bedbugs commit a massive attack on their victim.

AEROSOL FROM BUGS

RAPTOR anti-bed bug aerosol will help get rid of harmful bed bugs and provide you with truly healthy and sound sleep. An important quality criterion is that the aerosol does not contain ozone-depleting substances, which means it is absolutely harmless to humans.

After treating the room with this product, the drops fall on the insects and penetrate their body through the chitinous cover. Due to the long-term action of the components included in the aerosol, the sprayed substance settles on surfaces and provides long-term protection of the room.

ADVICE FOR USE:

Shake the bottle well before use.
For better spraying, the aerosol can must be held vertically.
Before using the aerosol, you need to vacuum the affected surfaces.
The procedure consists of spraying the product in the habitats of bed bugs, as well as in places where they may still be able to settle. It is necessary to treat the joints of elements of beds, sofas, cracks in parquet and walls, hard-to-reach places under window sills, in places where baseboards adjoin the wall, the reverse sides of wall objects - paintings, clocks, carpets).
It should be remembered that the bedding itself does not need to be treated!
It is recommended to carry out processing at a temperature not lower than +10°C.
15 minutes after spraying, ventilate the room for 30 minutes.
Important! After treatment, prepare a soap and soda solution and wipe areas and surfaces with which a person may be in direct contact. This procedure must be carried out with rubber gloves.

Do bedbugs carry dangerous diseases?

The most important question that every person has is, do bedbugs carry AIDS and HIV infections? Since the bug feeds on the blood of more than just one person, they really are carriers of infections. But this fact is relevant if the insect bites a victim who suffers from a dangerous illness, and then attacks a healthy person. This has not been practically proven, but these bloodsuckers sense infected blood and generally do not bite people with serious illnesses.

If cases such as a bug infecting a healthy person are appropriate, then these are exceptional moments. The main types of serious diseases that the parasite can reward its victim are:

Hepatitis B; AIDS; Anthrax; Plague; Smallpox.

In order not to tempt fate, you should remove such bloodsuckers from your apartment quickly and efficiently.

Interesting fact! When bedbugs bite a victim who is sick with HIV infection or other diseases, they suck her blood, but do not themselves suffer from these diseases. Often this is due to the immunodeficiency virus.

Another method of infection is inhalation, through which inhaled air with the waste products of these pests can cause infection. If entire colonies of bedbugs live in a room, then the likelihood of infection is very high.

Other types of biting bugs

In addition to bed bugs, there are also bedbugs in nature that can easily attack humans.

For example, giant belostoma - these bugs are the largest in general. They live mainly in North America and feed on young fish and frogs. These insects bite with amazing pain!

But, for example, a bite from a bug of the water scorpion family can leave a swelling that hurts for several days.

The bites of water bugs of the Gladysheva family are also very unpleasant; they are also called water wasps; they bite as if they were stinging!

Here it is fair to say that all these bugs attack a person only when they feel danger, that is, for the purpose of self-defense. If you don’t step on them or touch them, then they too will pass by.

In the summer, the most common bugs found in the park or in nature are the noxious bug and the stink bug. In principle, they are not dangerous to humans. The only danger is that they can leave an unpleasant odor on your hands and if you want to drive them out of the house, you should do it very carefully!

Psychological breakdowns as a consequence of a bug bite

Doctors associate mental disorders in humans with serious disruptions in the body, provoked by the bites of domestic bugs. If a person discovers a bug on his body, then naturally this will cause him a surge of unpleasant emotions, frustration, fear and other negative factors. Parents should ensure that the children's room is completely clean and disinfected. After all, one of the reasons why a child can wake up and cry at night is an insect bite.

Constant or periodic insect attacks lead to the development of the following consequences:

the formation of a nervous tic that occurs not only after a person encounters a parasite, but also after detection of parasite bites; disruption of normal and healthy sleep; the appearance of aggressiveness, which is replaced by frequent excitability; loss of concentration and frequent fatigue.

To avoid becoming a victim of these nocturnal bloodsuckers, it is necessary to declare war on the parasites. During the fight against parasites, it is recommended to move out of the apartment while comprehensive disinfection is carried out.

Vector-borne diseases

There are a number of diseases that are transmitted through insect bites; they are called vector-borne. For example, these include tick-borne encephalitis and mosquito-borne malaria.

No such diseases have been identified for bedbugs. It has been scientifically proven that they are carriers of a number of diseases. However, it is still unknown whether bedbugs are dangerous as vectors; not a single case of human infection has been documented.

The following were found in the body of these parasites:

plague is a severe infectious disease that affects internal organs and often leads to death;
coxiellosis – fever 39-40°C, accompanied by pain in muscles and joints;
toxoplasmosis is a disease that is most dangerous for pregnant women, causing damage to the nervous system of the fetus;
tularemia is an infection that has symptoms such as high fever, pain, inflammation of the lymph nodes with subsequent ulcers;
hepatitis B is a viral disease that leads to liver dysfunction and cirrhosis.

Which diseases from this list can be dangerous? Coxiellosis and tularemia are transmitted not only by direct contact with the blood, but also by aspiration, through the respiratory system, so the presence of bugs carrying these diseases in a room can be unsafe: the air in such housing is dusty with microresidues of insects and their feces.

As a result of laboratory studies, it was revealed that hepatitis B persists in the body of bed bugs for 2 months, moreover, it is actively excreted in their excrement.

Thus, it is possible that infection can occur through household means, and in the presence of fresh wounds and scratches, through blood.

What places do bedbugs like to bite?

The bug mainly bites at night and in those places where the skin is thinnest and the blood vessels are located close to the surface. Parasites are primarily attracted to exposed areas of skin, and only then do they get under clothing and continue to suck blood. Most often, vinegar for bedbugs can be found:

on the back and shoulders,
on the legs and arms,
on the neck and back of the head.

Quite rarely, marks appear on a person’s face or stomach.

I had bedbugs in my apartment that were discovered after the first bites. Before going to bed, I lit an aromatic lamp with the scent of lavender, put a few drops of oil on the night lamp and put lavender sprigs under the bed. The insects stopped biting.