Who knew there was science to papercuts?
Today I managed to get a paper cut in my eyeball. If anyone could do this, it would of course be me. I was talking with someone and turned around to grab some papers. In my rush a bunch of the papers went flying and one chunk managed to slip its way under my glasses and poke me right in the eye. There wasn’t any blood thankfully, just a lot of water and now my eye feels like there’s a giant cat hair stuck in it.
If you’ve ever wondered why paper cuts hurt so much more than regular cuts, here’s what Wikipedia has to say, I was surprised to find a lengthy article:
Paper cuts can cause surprisingly acute pain since they usually stimulate a large number of skin surface pain receptors (nociceptors) in a very small area of the skin. Because the shallow cut does not bleed very much, the pain receptors are left open to the air, ensuring continued pain. This is exacerbated by irritation caused by the fibers in the paper itself, which may be coated in chemicals such as bleach. Additionally, most paper cuts occur in the fingers, which have a greater concentration of sensory receptors than the rest of the body.
It goes on to further explain basically why people can lie on beds of nails. Three years ago, some lady actually almost died from a paper cut.
