Although seemingly insignificant, paper cuts are intensely painful and a source of high irritation to anybody who is unfortunate enough to receive one of these nasty little cuts. Furthermore, if paper cuts are not treated properly, the pain associated with them can become rather long term as the cut is continually reopened and faces the risky prospect of becoming infected. Since paper cuts are unavoidable and likely to occur regularly throughout the course of our lifetimes, basic steps should be taken to minimize pain and ensure a quick recovery.
If you receive a paper cut, the first thing you should be concerned with is stopping the bleeding. Apply pressure to the cut to minimize the blood flow and keep the pressure on the wound until the bleeding stops. Once the bleeding is under control, rinse the wound liberally with soap and water for at least 30 seconds. Be sure to take care not to reopen the wound while you are cleansing it as it may cause further bleeding. Once you have washed the paper cut thoroughly, it is ideal to use some type of antibacterial agent to prevent infection. There are many high quality and effective antibacterial creams, sprays, and rinses on the market and any will do. Hydrogen peroxide is inexpensive and widely available and can be used to not only clean and disinfectant the wound, but also to prevent infection. A more expensive alternative, Neosporin is an antibiotic cream that is also very effective at preventing infection.
Once the paper cut has been thoroughly cleansed and an antibacterial agent has been applied, cover the small wound with a sterile bandage of some type. A simple Band-Aid works best, but make sure that it is fitting properly so you don’t run the risk of it coming off and germs getting into the damaged skin.
Now that you have properly tended to and bandaged your pesky paper cut, you want to do follow-up maintenance on a regular basis to make sure the cut is healing properly. Remove the sterile bandage from the cut at least once a day and wash the wound with soap and water. Although a cut is properly bandaged, germs still may manage to get to the wound and cause further irritation and pain or even an infection. Since paper cuts usually occur on the hands and fingers which are used frequently throughout the day, it is also imperative that the sterile bandage covering the wound is removed at least once a day (more than once for those who use their hands frequently) as the bandage is likely to become loose or compromised throughout the course of the day. After thoroughly cleansing the wound again, check to see if there is any redness or swelling of the skin surrounding the wound. If redness or swelling is present, that suggests that germs are getting through the break in the skin and causing an infection. If this is the case, try changing your sterile bandage more frequently throughout the day and experiment with the most effective way of securing the bandage. Make sure that each time before a new sterile bandage is applied that you thoroughly clean the wound and reapply an antibacterial agent. Paper cuts typically only take a few days to heal and anything longer suggests the presence of an infection that needs to be treated aggressively with frequent cleansings, antibacterial agents, and sterile bandages. With a little TLC, you can expect minimal pain and a rapid recovery from those nuisance paper cuts.
