When to Seek Urgent Care for a Cut

Life is full of mishaps. Whether it’s a slip of the knife in the kitchen or a sharp edge on a weekend DIY project, cuts can happen anytime. While you can manage most cuts with basic first aid at home, some may require professional medical attention.

So how do you know when it’s time to seek urgent care for a cut? 

At Pro-Health Urgent Care of Midland, our highly skilled urgent care specialists treat a wide range of non-emergency injuries, including cuts. Sometimes getting the right care for a cut can help prevent infection, reduce scarring, or avoid more serious complications. 

Here, we help you understand when a cut needs urgent medical attention.  

Minor vs. serious cuts

Most of the time, it’s easy to tell the difference between a minor and a serious cut. A minor cut is small and shallow, and it stops bleeding almost right away. A serious cut, on the other hand,  can be large, deep, and bleeding heavily.

Size and depth aren’t the only factors that determine the severity of a cut. Other considerations include:

Cause of the cut

Some cuts may look minor but are more serious due to the cause. For example, a dog bite might cause only a minor puncture wound, but it carries a high risk of infection. Cuts from rusty nails, dirty tools, or fish hooks also require medical attention due to the risk of tetanus. 

Is it dirty or contaminated?

A scraped knee may not look alarming, but if it’s full of gravel, grass, or dirt that you can’t easily rinse away with water, it could lead to an infection. Cuts you can’t clean at home need professional attention.

Shape of the cut

Straight cuts tend to heal better than jagged or ragged cuts because the edges line up evenly, allowing the skin to close and repair itself more efficiently. Jagged cuts have irregular edges, which can delay healing and increase your risk of infection or scarring. 

If you’re not sure about the seriousness of your cut, give our office a call for guidance. We can set up a telehealth appointment for convenient care. 

When cuts need urgent care

Any scrape or cut that concerns you warrants a visit to urgent care. However, you should come in and see us if:

• Your cut is long, deep, or has jagged edges
• The cut is dirty
• It occurred from a dog or human bite
• Bleeding doesn’t stop within minutes
• Your skin was stripped away (avulsion)

You should go to the emergency room if the bleeding is severe, the cut is very large, or you’ve lost a lot of blood and you feel faint or dizzy. 

First aid before you arrive

You manage your injury temporarily with basic first aid before you get to urgent care. First, use a clean cloth or bandage to cover the wound and apply pressure to stop the bleeding. Then, rinse the cut under running water to clean it out. 

You can use soap to wash around the wound, but avoid getting any soap in the cut because it may irritate the wound and cause pain. Apply an antiseptic cream and cover the wound with a clean bandage.

Urgent care for cuts

At Pro-Health Urgent Care of Midland, we thoroughly examine your cut and clean it. Depending on the severity, we may suture the cut to close the wound and apply an antibiotic cream. 

We may also prescribe an antibiotic if you’re at risk of infection or update your tetanus shot if necessary. We may have you come back to the office for monitoring or recommend following up with your primary care provider for ongoing wound care. In most cases, no further treatment is needed.

Any cut that’s deep, dirty, or still bleeding after a few minutes requires a visit to urgent care. Getting the right care quickly can prevent complications and help you heal faster. If you have questions, call our clinic in Midland, Michigan.