06/10/2021
Why Paper cuts are so painful?
Your fingertips are very sensitive. They're built to serve as the primary means by which your brain processes your sense of touch. They can feel pressure, pain, and temperature easily. There are more nerve fibers (called nociceptors) per square inch in your fingertips than most other areas of your body.
When you get a paper cut, the paper slices through these nerve fibers, resulting in many pain signals being sent to your brain. If that wasn't bad enough, you'll notice after a paper cut that you can't just stop using your hands until it heals. You constantly need to use your hands and, as you do so, your skin moves and the wound gets pressed and pulled upon, which delays healing and renews the pain you feel each time it happens.
The typical location of paper cuts explains why a paper cut on your fingertip hurts more than a similar cut on your belly or leg. However, a paper cut tends to hurt more than a different kind of cut, like from a knife, on your fingertip. Why is that?
To answer that question, we have to look at the object doing the cutting: the paper. Unlike a knife edge, which is extremely sharp and straight, the edge of a piece of paper is dull and flexible by comparison. Adding to the pain is the fact that paper cuts tend to be shallow and bleed little. This means many damaged nerve endings are left exposed near the surface of your skin, where they can be irritated easily, resulting in more pain signals being sent to your brain.
