Okay this is the third time I've woken up to these itchy bumps with red/purple dots in them. They hurt when you push/scratch on them but itch like crazy. What should I be looking for?
Note: It's not bed bugs. I was however having an issue with fleas at my job. My arms are covered in flea bites. I have never seen flea bites like this.
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Bed bugs will take three bites to fill up on. If you don't see three bites in a row, they are most likely flee bites. Flee bites itch even more when you scratch them.
Flea bites have that one puncture, as you describe, and are miserable. :-(
One way to find fleas in the house is to put on a pair of white cotton socks and walk/shuffle around for 5-10 minutes. Fleas will hop onto the socks, so you can (carefully) take off the sock and inspect them. Fleas have relatively hard bodies but should squish.
You also can detect fleas by gently wipe the bed frame and floor around your bed or couch with a white paper towel, diaper, pillowcase etc. Then lightly spray any debris on the cloth with water. If dark brown/red spots, that's flea dirt.
One other quick note: fleas are hitchhikers. If you don't have a pet that could be the carrier, keep in mind that they'll ride in on second-hand furnishings.
The internet has lots of easy and effective concoctions for soothing bites and creating natural repellants, but to get fleas GONE you'll need to wash all your bed linen in the warmest water possible. Also you can try sprinkling a combo of salt and baking soda around on the rugs, waiting a couple hours, and then vacuuming thoroughly (empty out the bag right away). Ideally, if you are renting, the landlord should have shampooed the carpets between tenants, but you never know. Best of luck!
You can have bird mites that bite also. I would get an exterminator to investigate what is going on
Do you sleep with a window open at night? The bites might be from a gnat called a "no-seeum". If that is the trouble, the best thing to do is either keep windows closed after dark, or take the window screens outside and spray both sides well with a bug spray like Deep Woods Off. Once dry, put screens back in window frame. No-seeums are so small that they can fit through the mesh of screens...even without any holes in them. I have a really good nylon tent that one of its selling points was that it had No-seeum proof screens that are finer mesh than any window screens. Guess what? NOT NO-SEEUM PROOF !!!!!! When we woke up in the morning while camping, all the upper corners in the tent were black with hundreds to thousands of the little terrors, and the four of us had tiny welts with reddish purple centers all over whatever parts of our bodies had been exposed in the night.
I get a similar reaction after some sunscreen and some of the off brand hand sanitizers. I usually notice the bumps the next morning the severity will depend on how much goo and how long it is on.
I also think it is biting midges (also known as no-see-ums, punkies, biting gnats, and often incorrectly referred to as sandflies).
it is the female that bites. She feeds on the blood of humans and animals, consuming protein to develop a batch of eggs. As the female bites, she injects a little of her saliva into the open wound. Her saliva contains an anticoagulant that makes it easier for her to extract the blood. It is this saliva that some people are allergic to. Different people have different reactions to these bites. It is the female that bites.
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