I think it is likely that you are being bitten by something else, that actually wants your blood. And the centipedes are most likely eating the things that are really biting you (and are in the bedroom because that’s where the other bugs are).

1)Hold the centipede’s head down(gently)with your left thumb.
2)Slide a piece of stiff paper underneath the centipede(don’t release your grip on the centipede’s head)
3)Slide your left hand fingers under the paper,and lift the paper and the centipede up so that the paper protects your fingers from the centipede’s claws

The centipede scampered away as soon as it oriented itself, and seemed quite healthy. The pillbug picture you reference is interesting, but my bug did not have this type of coloration. The pillbug is completely blue and the wrong color of blue. As you can see from the pictures of other blue centipedes, the blue color they usually use is a beautiful lighter teal color — the same color of blue on my centipede. Its blue legs looked exactly like the blue legs on the pictures I’ve found. It’s just that there was a lot of the same blue and some green on the body as well, and the body was translucent, just like the legs. The blue and green seemed to be in stripes down the entire body, which would also be unusual for a centipede, since they tend to exhibit colors that alternate in bands on different segments, or they have a solid-color body, with legs and/or head of a different color. It’s possible that it had a red head, but I’m not sure. I just remember that it was extremely colorful and I wished it would have stayed still longer and that I could have taken a picture of it. It was maybe one and a half inches long, or less. The legs were short and somewhat uniform in length (compared to the common american brown house centipedes), such as those on other blue-legged varieties. I have wondered if the blue coloration had something to do with a cycle or phase that the centipedes go thru, but I would think people would find quite a few more blue ones if that were the case. Also, one could speculate that the blue color could result from what type of food they are eating. But after seeing all the different photos of red, red and black, brown, yellow, and blue centipedes, I’m thinking the colors have more to do with camouflage, or “keep away, I’m poisonous”, or “hey, I’m beautiful, come get my sperm sac and make my babies”.

It seems that centipedes have not been researched that extensively yet. I’m surprised by this, because I find them quite fascinating. I’m also surprised that so many bug fanciers find this particular bug too creepy to deal with. But thanks for rekindling my memories of this amazing experience, even if it was a little scary.

You know, it occurs to me that your mystery centipede might not actually have been native – could somebody above you have been keeping exotic centipedes as pets?

Or, for that matter, it might have been a more typical centipede infected with an iridovirus – I don’t know if these viruses infect centipedes, but when they infect pillbugs and woodlice they turn them bright blue.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hbuys/3886599751/

See how much you inspire in your followers, Tim? If you ever find a blue one, let me know!

http://www.atshq.org/articles/centipedes.html

It seems to indicate that even if there is venom secreted from the legs of certain types of centipedes (not the typical house centipedes), the venom will only cause a trail of irritation down the path that the centipede crawled on a person’s skin. Centipedes do not typically carry enough venom to do real harm to most human beings. It’s also nice to know that most centipede bites are compared to bee stings, and that any very rare fatalities would occur from those people that are allergic to centipede venom. This last information was found on another site. (Sorry, I didn’t keep track of which site it was.) The allergic reactions would also be similar to the reactions of those with allergies to bee stings.

http://www.desertusa.com/animals/centipedes.html

So far, they have the best info. on the subject. I’m surprised there aren’t more pictures on BugGuide.net. Centipedes seem to come in a great deal of variety. The small, brown ones are the most common, but there are many very colorful ones out there! The one I described earlier was transparent. The fluorescent light green and teal or sky-blue (stripes going down its length?) were also transparent. I haven’t seen any pictures that come close to this description yet. I’ll keep looking.