Two broken skin spots, unknown origin

The short of my story is that yesterday morning I woke up fine, no issues. A couple hours later my arm felt itchy and irritated so I looked down to scratch it and found two dots of broken skin about 1.27 cm apart. The centers have at least the top layer of skin gone and the unbroken skin around each is pink to red and about the size of a pencil eraser. There was also a small non-irritated scratch mark in the middle. Since I had been indoors most of the previous day, I cannot think of how this could have happened. Even my wife who is the logical one said they do look odd and so close together. So, my mind goes to bat bite in sleep.

For positives, our large dog sleeps with us and I have to imagine he would have seen or heard a bat and alerted us to it. Also, its been cold for a month where I live so most bats should be hibernating. Also, I don't see how a disoriented bat would have made it into my house and eluded us and our pets until night and still eluded them. Lastly, I went over our whole bedroom and part of our house and never found anything.

For negatives, I really cannot figure out what would cause two spots like that and my wife cannot either. I wonder what if there was a bat and maybe it bit me then fell on the floor or something and the dog ate it while we were asleep so we never knew. Or maybe it's still hiding around the house somewhere.

I'm trying to be calm, but am lost on what causes two irritated marks like that with broken skin and occurred without me knowing about it. Bats can bit in your sleep without you knowing, though. One last positive I'm trying to use is that during my last big fear 5-10 years ago, I actually went and found a place that let me buy the three pre-exposure shots. So, even though it was awhile ago, I assume something is still in my system that might protect me?

The fact that they are itchy and red makes me think of insect bites. I woke up with a whole line of bites about a month and a half ago. It was some kind of bug that got into my bed while I was sleeping and just kept walking along and biting me. I went to the doctor because I was concerned it was bedbugs (and was ready to turn my house upside down), but was told it was not bed bug bites, although it was some type of insect. They gave me a prescription cortisone cream which helped clear it up more quickly. It might be worth a trip to the doctor to identify what bit you, not because it was a bat, but because it might be something else you need to address.


I can definitely say there's no way a dog would eat a bat and leave no evidence and make no noise. At least no dog I've known.

Honestly I've been there with the "two bites close to each other that look like bat bites" so many times that I promise you it isn't worth the worry. At the end of the day there is no definitive way to know what bit you, could have been a bug that got into your bed, a rogue flea or insect that your dog may have picked up and brought into the bed is my first thought, could just be you itched your skin and it happened to break in that way, however you've already laid out the groundwork for reminding yourself that a bat is not the culprit. Bats aren't ninjas, especially supposedly rabid bats, if the bat was there in the night, it would still be there in the day.

This sounds like bug bites to me! I would just change out your sheets and vacuum around the bed. I've woken with bites like this several times and in my case I think it was a spider that was living near my bed and coming out at night. Once I vacuumed all the crevices and washed the sheets it stopped. You would obviously know if a rabid bat was flying around your room at night.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. This still lingers in the back of my mind every now and then. I think it would help if the spots would finally go away so I don't think about them!

Is it odd that a month afterwards the spots are still visible? They have healed some, but one spot in particular still has a small scab and is red. I've had other scratches and skin breaks from work or my cat that happened after this and healed much faster. Part of me thinks that if people usually have trouble making out a bat bite, they must not leave that bad of a mark. Just strange.

Is the slow healing pointing more towards a bug bite then if bat bites are usually hard to see?