Paper cuts are a type of laceration but they are not a severe laceration that cuts your skin deep.
Paper cuts occur when a piece of thin and sharp material, such as an individual paper sheet, slices your skin.
Paper cuts, although termed specifically for cuts caused by paper, can also result from other abrasive, thin materials.
When the paper cuts open your skin, it leaves behind a chaotic path of destruction rather than a smooth laceration.
The paper cut rips, tears, and shreds your skin, rather than making clean slice, as a razor or knife blade would do.
And if that wasn't enough, paper cuts are typically shallow but not too shallow.
The reason you don't bleed when you get a paper cut is paper cut does not cut far enough into your skin and the paper cut does not penetrate the dermis, a paper cut typically doesn't bleed a lot.
However if the paper cut gets far enough into the skin you could bleed from the paper cut.
Chapstick and lip balm can help paper cuts as it helps relieve pain by blocking air from open nerves.
A paper cut can get infected if it gets bacteria in it.
After a paper cut you should clean the paper cut and cover it with a bandage and also use some hydrogen peroxide on the paper cut to help disinfect the area.
Paper cuts take so long to heal because paper cuts are relatively superficial and don't bleed much, and therefore may not heal as quickly.
Other cuts heal a bit faster since blood is full of wound-healing chemicals that activate cells to get the blood to clot and get cells to migrate to heal, there's a whole cascade of chemicals with a job to do when you bleed.
Most paper cuts take a few days to heal although sometimes it may take up to a week for the paper cut to heal.
Most paper cuts aren't serious.
In general, the paper cut will heal in 2 to 3 days without medical treatment.
Paper cuts hurt so much because when the paper cuts open your skin, it leaves behind a chaotic path of destruction rather than a smooth laceration.
The paper cut rips, tears, and shreds your skin, rather than making clean slice, as a razor or knife blade would do.
And if that wasn't enough, paper cuts are typically shallow but not too shallow.
Although the paper cut does not cut further into your skin.
Instead, the blood capillaries are packed into the dermis layer.
Since a microscopic cut does not penetrate the dermis, a paper cut typically doesn't bleed a lot.
How deep can a paper cut get?
Under that layer is the dermis, and it's about five or six millimeters thick.
And a paper cut can go well into the dermis.”
The nerve endings are in the dermis layer, so the cuts get right into those and causes all that pain.
And yet, they don't go deep enough to get to the blood vessels just below.
Most people will see a paper cut heal within two or three days.
However, if your cut doesn't improve in that time especially if you have diabetes or are otherwise immunocompromised talk with your doctor to make sure the cut isn't triggering another problem, such as an infection.
Unlike closed wounds, such as bruises or closed fractures, open wounds are injuries that involve a break in the skin and leave the internal tissue exposed.
The skin has an important role in protecting the organs, tissues, and other structures inside the body, so a breach of the skin can potentially invite infection.
Open wound types include abrasions, excoriation, skin tears, avulsions, lacerations and punctures.
Wounds are injuries that break the skin or other body tissues.
They include cuts, scrapes, scratches, and punctured skin.
They often happen because of an accident, but surgery, sutures, and stitches also cause wounds.