I'll try to keep this initial post brief, but there's a lot of questions that I have regarding my specific situation despite all my searching in this forum.
So January 16th I went to a relatives house to stay the night after a trip to a campus which I was attending for school. I woke up about midnight because I felt something crawling on my arm underneath my hooded sweatshirt. I pinched the perpetrator between my fingers and flicked the flash light on my phone... between my fingers a bed bug, and then I happened to catch a glimpse at the front of my shirt, my leggings, my socks, and the recliner I was sleeping in and there were bed bugs EVERYWHERE. I ran into the bathroom and there were bed bugs in the bathroom. They were EVERYWHERE! I left my relative's house (called them the next day with the lame excuse that I was ill), and drove home. I stripped all of my clothes off before entering the house and left all of my luggage, clothes, purse, folders from campus, laptop, shoes, and anything that was in my car outside of the house. Luckily I live in NW Wisconsin and that particular weekend was the coldest weekend all winter, between 10-15 below zero and the windchill made it anywhere from 20-30 below and it stayed this way for several day. I left all the windows in my car open and stuck the thermometer in the car which read -10. I also jumped right in the shower because I was afraid they had hitched a ride in my thick, long hair. After 4 days of leaving all my belongings in the frigid cold and not needing to use my car as I was off of work, I did find a couple of dead bed bugs in my luggage and purse, so it confirmed my fear that they hitched a ride with me, but hopefully didn't make it inside my home.
I had no bites initially but exactly 7 days later I developed huge itchy welts on my hands. It also appeared as if I were getting new welts. I remember when I stayed at my relatives house I had been wearing that sweater, my leggings, and thick wool socks that went up mid-calf and my leggings were tucked into these, so no way I could have gotten a bite on the bottom of my foot and on my toes if I were wearing thick wool socks, right? I called a PCO and they assured me that because I took all of the aforementioned measures I had a better chance of being struck by lightening than bringing a bed bug into the home... so I shrugged my shoulders and decided that these crazy bites were delayed reactions, but it seemed like every day I had a new bite that wasn't there before (maybe- at this point I was pretty miserable from the itching and having a nervous breakdown).
Thus far I had torn my bedding apart, put sticky rat traps under the posts of the bed, washed all my bedding, made a homemade CO2 trap, and started inspecting for cast skins, fecal spots, and actual bedbugs, with no results... Approximately 2 weeks after that first encounter my histamine reaction was so severe that any itching would cause old bites to flare-up and despite my lack of actual evidence of bed bug presence, I still felt new bites were appearing in places I hadn't seen them previously; so I figured I had to dismiss my delayed reaction theory. I was wearing sweatpants and long sleeves, socks and even gloves to bed, but it still seemed like I had new bites on my hands, ankles and feet. By this time the welts were still itching fiercely despite OTC hydrocortisone and nearly a nonstop dosing of benadryl. For this reason I went to the doctor who consulted with dermatology who said arthropod bites. I was so miserable I forgot to have the doctor ask if derm knew if there was a time frame for delayed reactions, and the primary doctor I saw didn't know, but he did extend to me a small olive branch in prescribing 0.1% triamcinolone cream (more than a month later, I still have small scars from the bites).
My bed bug knowledge by this time had increased 110-fold. I have been on googling bed bug info and have been on this forum incessantly. My husband was convinced I had gone bananas because he never experienced a single bite, and of course I didn't believe him. I bought some cheap traps from walmart that were supposed to trap the little buggers, but no evidence. Nothing in the sticky rat traps at the legs of the bed either. The triamcinolone cream was working so great, but I had to be certain to eradicate this phantom bug, that I'm still not entirely sure I even brought home. I bought some compressed neem oil spray and saturated the perimeter of my mattress and box spring. I then put diatomaceous earth around the legs of my bed frame (no headboard), and moved the bed away from the wall. I figured the neem oil would repel them out of the bed (it practically repelled us out of the house with the smell, boy was my husband mad), and then I figured if they came back (once again never even sure if they were there to begin with), they would walk through the DE and die.
Fast forward to the last weekish-- the neem oil was applied maybe 2.5 weeks ago and there's still a lingering scent on the mattress but it's becoming less noticeable. I have dreams about the infestation at my relatives house. I have no new bites, but now I'm convinced the neem oil, DE, triamcinolone cream have created a desensitization reaction as there are no welts, but I wake up in the middle of the night itching. At this point, I just need either reassurance that I truly don't have bedbugs, or someone to say that I do have them and it's too early to find any concrete evidence... I would be reassured that I didn't have them if that bite timeline matched up to my initial contact, and if I weren't wearing huge wool socks and leggings to bed that night, and if I wasn't currently itching in the middle of the night!!! But once again no welts, no daytime itching, and no bedbug evidence; just night terrors and paranoia 