HIVES...I don't think so!

WARNING: The following post is not for the faint of heart or those that are easily grossed out. However, this post comes with a lesson and solves the mystery of Lisa's hives.

To start I need to give a little background information. About 2 months ago I started developing "hives". It started with a few welts that look like mosquito bites on my feet and arms. At first we thought it was caused by stress due to our recent adoption heartbreak and the timing made sense. I took benadryl for a while which helped, but made me feel terrible, so I stopped. I finally went to a dermatologist in July and started taking a combination of anti-histamines in the morning and night. This seemed to help with the itching but the "hives" did not go away. My doctor told me if the meds didn't work after a month then it could be an allergy and I would probably have to go through allergy testing to determine what was causing the reaction.

This past week I hit the month mark of being on my medication and I did not get any better. Last Saturday I actually had 25-30 small welts within a six inch area on my left arm. It was terrible, I was frustrated, and afraid I had some kind of allergy to food or worse to Luca. On Monday I decided I would call the doctor the next day and arrange for some testing, but Rich stopped that plan. Monday evening I came home to Rich doing some research about my "hives" on the internet. At first he would not tell me his theory, but when I looked at the screen I freaked out. He was looking at a website with a big picture of a bedbug...that's right I don't have hives I have bug bites...YUCK!!

On Monday Rich was putting away some laundry that was next to the bed when he found a small tic like bug crawling on his shorts. He also found some tiny blood marks under his pillow on the bed. With these two findings he began wondering if it could be bug bites and with some simple research the mystery was solved. That night we stripped our bed, pulled it away from the wall, and found more bugs. They were mainly hiding on the box spring especially in between the box spring and the plastic corner covers.
Looking back at the timeline of events this all makes sense. We went to Disneyland for a week and then to Texas for a couple of nights. I began having bites shortly after these hotel stays. It could of been the hotel in Anaheim because of all the world travelers that go to Disneyland, but we choose to blame the Texas hotel. The hotel in Texas was not that nice to start out with and with all the grief we had from that trip it just works. Also to had humor to this horrible experience we like to say, "We went to Texas to bring home a baby and even though that didn't work out we didn't come home alone...we came home with a family of bed bugs."

Some of you might be wondering why Rich didn't have "hives" or bites...It's because he is a freak of nature. Rich luckily does not react to bug bites and barely notices a mosquito bite. He might itch for 10 minutes and then it is over. So, during the past 2 months the bugs were biting both of us, but by the morning Rich did not have any symptoms.

The lesson from this 2 month nightmare experience is to always check your hotel for bed bugs and never assume it is clean. Also make sure to wash all of your travel clothing in hot water immediately following your trip. We know no matter where we will stay in the future we will always check the mattress and box spring extra carefully.

Even though, this has been a rough 2 months and we are completely disgusted to find the bugs, we are trying to look on the brightside:

*I do not have a life altering food allergy
*I am not allergic to my cute dog Luca

*Everything in our bedroom will get a deep cleaning

*We are buying a new tempurpedic bed (This one is the best)

So, to all of those that are completely disgusted we recommend a nice warm shower to wash the psychologically itching away. If the first shower doesn't work try again. And, remember tonight as you crawl into bed, "Sleep tight, but don't let the bed bugs bite"...HA, HA!