Cuts or Lacerations (cont.)

1. First Aid Care and Pain Relief for Minor Injuries
2. First Aid Essentials Slideshow
3. Take the Trauma and First Aid Quiz

Call your doctor to decide whether you need a tetanus booster. You should have had a tetanus booster immunization within the last 10 years if you have a simple, clean cut, or within the last five years if you have a more complex or dirty cut.

Beyond general wound care advice, it is very difficult to give advice on care specific to a patient's cut over the phone. Your doctor may help you decide whether it is better to go to the doctor's office or to a hospital's Emergency Department.

Ask these questions when considering whether to get treatment for a cut at a hospital's Emergency Department:

• Can you stop the bleeding?
• Are the wound edges separated?
• Can you adequately clean the wound?
• Is it possible that serious underlying damage was done (such as a cut nerve or tendon)?
• Do you need a tetanus or rabies shot?
  • Tetanus is a serious condition resulting from a poison made by the Clostridium tetani bacterium, which is often present in dirt.
  • Rabies is a serious viral infection of the nervous system resulting from bites of rabid animals.

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