Lacerations
Laceration Treatment
Lacerations, or cuts, can be deep enough to require professional care because they’re so prone to infection from bacteria. At Care Fast Urgent Care in Burbank, California, Albert Kashanian, MD, Nora Davidian, PA, and the team can clean and sterilize your wound before closing it with medical adhesives or stitches. Simply walk in today.
Lacerations Q & A
What are lacerations?
Lacerations are tears or cuts in the skin that do not involve any loss of skin. If you lose skin, the injury is called an abrasion. Lacerations also differ from puncture wounds, which are usually deeper and come from long, sharp, and pointy objects. Lacerations also come from sharp objects but tend to be less deep and more irregular.
It’s common for whatever caused your cut or laceration, like a shard of glass, to leave behind debris in your skin. It can also introduce bacteria into your tissues, leaving the laceration prone to infection.
Lacerations tend to bleed a lot, more so than puncture wounds. Once you clear away some of the blood, you may be able to see underlying fat, muscle, or even bone. Fortunately, lacerations are the easiest wounds to diagnose, so the team at Care Fast Urgent Care can provide appropriate care almost immediately.
What should I do when I first get a laceration?
To care for a laceration before you have the chance to get to your doctor, you should provide basic first aid. Basic first aid for a laceration includes:
- Running water over the wound to clean it
- Applying antibiotic ointment, if you have some
- Controlling the bleeding with cloth, gauze, or adhesive bandage
- Applying firm and steady pressure to the wound to control bleeding
Your specialist at Care Fast Urgent Care can assess the wound and provide further care to stop the bleeding, prevent infection, and make sure you have minimal scarring when it heals.
How are lacerations treated?
Soon after you get a laceration, Care Fast Urgent Care can clean, repair, and treat the wound. Before providing care, your specialist asks about how the wound happened, any pre-existing medical conditions you have that may affect healing, and any additional symptoms like numbness or weakness in the affected area.
To ease the pain of a laceration, your specialist might inject local anesthesia, inject a nerve block, or apply topical numbing medicine. They initially clean the wound using soap, water, and diluted hydrogen peroxide. Then, they thoroughly irrigate the wound with sterile saline at a high pressure.
The next step in laceration repair depends on the size and depth of your wound. If it’s a minor laceration, your specialist may be able to treat it with adhesive tape or specialized tissue glue. Deeper or larger lacerations may require stitches to stop the bleeding and protect the tissues beneath the wound.
If you have a cut or laceration that needs professional care, simply walk in today.
