Cuts, Scrapes, and Scratches

What is a cut, scrape, or scratch?

Cuts, or lacerations, are openings into or through the skin. Cuts may just go through the skin or they may go into the deeper fatty or muscle tissues. Scrapes and scratches are areas of damage to the upper layers of skin. They may go into the deeper layers of skin and they may bleed, but they don't gape open to expose the fatty tissue beneath the skin.

How does it occur?

Cuts can occur from a variety of things. Most often they are caused by something sharp like glass or sharp metal that slices into your skin. Sometimes things that are blunt rather than sharp come into contact with your skin with such force that the skin tears. Scrapes and scratches occur when something harder than your skin comes into contact with it: for example, when you fall onto the sidewalk or when a nail or pet scratches you.

What are the symptoms?

The symptoms are:

• pain
• redness
• sometimes bleeding.

How is it diagnosed?

Your health care provider will ask about what happened and examine you.

How is it treated?

The treatment of a cut depends on the depth of the cut. Shallow cuts that go just into the upper skin can be treated at home just as you would a scrape or scratch (see below). Deeper cuts may need to be closed with skin glue, stitches, or staples. There are no hard and fast rules about this because the treatment depends in part on where the cut is. For example, you may want a cut on your face closed to lessen scarring. If it were on your foot you might not care so much about scarring. It also depends on how long and deep the cut is and how it happened. For example, very dirty wounds like animal bites are generally not closed because they are more likely to get infected.

When you have a scrape, scratch, or minor cut:

• Clean the scrape or scratch as completely as possible with soap and water. Remove any bits of dirt, small pieces of rock, or other debris.
• Put a topical antibiotic, such as Neosporin or Polysporin, on the wound and cover it with a bandage. Change the bandage daily, keeping the wound covered until it heals.
• If the wound is dirty or involves rusty metal and it has been more than 5 years since your last tetanus booster shot, or if you do not know when your last booster was, get another shot within 3 days of getting hurt. Try to get the shot the same day as the injury if possible. If it is not possible to get the shot within 3 days of the injury, get it as soon as you can.
• Take acetaminophen or ibuprofen for the pain. Don't take aspirin if your cut, scratch, or scrape is bleeding a lot.

Call your health care provider right away if:

• The skin is becoming redder or more painful.
• You have red streaks from the wound.
• Pus is draining from the wound.

If you have any question about whether a wound needs to be treated, get it checked by your provider.

How long will the effects last?

If you have a cut that glued shut, you can just wait for the glue to wear away. See the instructions that were given to you about wound care after gluing. If your wound was stitched shut and the stitches do not dissolve on their own, you will need to have them taken out. (If you can see the stitches going through your skin, they are not the kind that dissolves.) Your health care provider will tell you when you need to return to the office for removal of the stitches or staples. Depending on where a cut is, it will take about 5 to 14 days to heal.

Your scrape or scratch will probably heal in a week or so, depending on how large it is (the larger it is, the longer it takes). If you have other medical problems, it may take longer to heal. If your wound hasn't healed after 2 weeks, call your health care provider.