Why are paper cuts so painful?

[DAVEW0071]

They don’t go very deep, usually.

They appear to involve less trauma than, say, skinned knuckles.

Yet they hurt like crazy; seemingly out of proportion to the actual injury.

Why is this?

[Cougarfang]

This is a WAG, but… shock? Maybe you wouldn’t expect such a flimsy thing to hurt, so the pain you actually experience is blown out of proportion…

Just my really WA $0.02…

[Ice_Wolf]

From A Moment of Science :

Like a superficial cut by a razor blade, a paper cut smoothly parts the skin. But while a clean razor leaves little behind to irritate the wound, a paper cut deposits material that really stings. Paper is made of pressed wood mulch and a variety of chemicals. When paper cuts into the skin, chemical-coated fibers as well as bacteria and tiny particles remain in the wound and stimulate pain receptors in the skin.

There’s more on the page.

[Eggles]

I believe the apparently out-of-proportion amount of pain associated with a paper cut is because the fingertips are richly endowed with nerve endings (which is why for example a blind person uses fingertips for reading braille and not their knuckles). Damage to these pain receptors is what all the pain is due to.

[Kalashnikov]

I’d have to agree with **Ice Wolf ** (cool name BTW) that it must be something in the paper itself, since in my line of work I frequently get cuts from razor knives, and they don’t hurt much at all.

[barbitu8]

*Originally posted by Eggles *
**I believe the apparently out-of-proportion amount of pain associated with a paper cut is because the fingertips are richly endowed with nerve endings (which is why for example a blind person uses fingertips for reading braille and not their knuckles). Damage to these pain receptors is what all the pain is due to. **

Although our fingertips have many nerve endings, paper cuts hurt just as much when they occur in the webbing of our fingers, or even elsewhere on the hand (as I can recently attest to). So, I don’t believe that’s the reason.

[DAVEW0071]

I wasn’t thinking of the residual effects of the material(s) left behind in the cut. Ice Wolf provided an excellent cite and quote. I hadn’t thought it completely, through, I guess. Makes sense, though.

Thanks.