If you’re having bed bug problems and think you might have an infestation, the first thing you’ll want to do is visit a doctor. By seeing a doctor you can get a differential diagnosis on what is causing your itching and other symptoms. But before you go see a doctor you should inspect the areas in which the bugs are usually found such as the seams of your mattress, box spring, and headboard. You should also look under your bed and furniture for signs of bed bugs. For example bed bugs could leave blood stains or fecal matter where they once lived or feasted on human blood. If you’ve inspected your mattress/box spring and have found signs of bed bug activity here are several places to check for future proofing purposes: Bed bug infestations can reduce your quality of life. A well diagnosed differential diagnosis is necessary to identify the particular species in order to develop an effective management plan. We describe several key aspects that differentiate infestations of the common bed bugs Cimex lectularius and Cimex hemipterus, which inhabit urban and rural environments, respectively, in the USA. Sanitation, pest control practices and seasonal patterns aid in species identification of bed bug infestations among residents of inner-city and suburban neighborhoods.

Bed Bug Differential Diagnosis

Bites

If you have been bitten by a bed bug, your skin may react to the insect’s saliva.

Skin reactions from bed bug bites include:

• redness around the bite
• swelling of the bite area
• itchiness of your skin

Fecal stains

Fecal stains are found on bedding, walls and other furniture. They are small (3/16 inch), reddish-brown in color, pepper-like and found in clusters. Bed bug fecal matter is often found close to where the insects hide—under baseboards or in cracks between carpeting and floorboards.

Molted skin

As bed bugs mature and grow, they molt their skin. Molted skins are a key indicator of a bed bug infestation. You will know you have found one when it looks like an empty bed bug shell (they are translucent). These molted skins can be found near hiding places such as furniture, behind baseboards and inside mattresses.

Here’s how to tell the difference between the signs of bed bugs and other pests.

Bed bug bites are often mistaken for other insect bites, but there are a few things you can compare to identify the signs of a bed bug infestation.

• Compare bed bug bites to flea bites. Flea bites tend to be raised and red in color, while bed bug bites are flat, red or brownish in color, and resemble an allergic reaction at first glance.
• Compare bed bug feces to cockroach droppings. Cockroach droppings look like black pepper grains when fresh (as opposed to dark brown or black), have rounded edges with no wings on either end like cockroach bodies do not have wings). Bed bugs do not produce visible droppings; they expel waste into their hiding places instead (usually mattresses). Most people only see fecal stains when they take apart their furniture looking for bugs—and these stains may indicate an infestation if they appear along baseboards in hard-to-reach spaces where cockroaches live as well as on top surfaces where they crawl around during the day
• Compare bed bug skins (shed skins) with spider skins–bed bugs shed their exoskeleton when molting and before emerging from their eggs; spiders do not shed their exoskeletons like this.