Most of this week was spent lying awake at night feeling all sorts of bugs crawling over me. These are the annoying phantom bugs that you somehow know are there, but can’t actually see or feel. And while they don’t exist, it actually doesn’t help at 2am when you turn on the light and rifle through the bedclothes trying to find any evidence of the things you just know are there.

It started when I saw the doctor on Tuesday. I have psoriasis, and before/during my trip to Boston, it seemed to be flaring up pretty badly, and even spreading to my legs, though spreading by drying out spot-like things instead of the normal scales like I find on the back of my head. I thought a trip to the doctor’s would be useful.

She ruled out spreading psoriasis pretty early on, and instead suggested that they could be bedbug bites. My knowledge of bedbugs is really just limited to seeing BBC reports on the infestations in places like New York, so I was somewhat horrified, as I had dim recollections of people having to throw out their mattresses, beds, clothes, and all sorts to other things to try and stem the relentless hordes of bugs.

Needless to say, I itched all the way back to work.

When I got back home, armed with Google Image search, I stripped the bed down to the mattress and went bug-hunting. And of course, I couldn’t find anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. So sleep was somewhat harder Tuesday night.

As I couldn’t find anything, but I did want to sleep again sometime, I called Triangle Pest Control, who offer a free bedbug inspection, as well as impressive heat treatments where they heat your house up to 60˚C and KILL EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. The head of the company came around Friday afternoon, told me stories about their bedbug-hunting dogs, horror stories about a certain fast-food franchise in the Durham area, and then pulled up the mattress and the bed to confirm that he couldn’t find anything either.

So, it looks like it isn’t bedbugs. So, not entirely sure why my legs are the way that they are, but we can at least eliminate them. Hurrah!