It happens without warning. A minute ago you were fine. Now there’s blood everywhere. Do you need stitches? Should you clean the cut yourself and hope for the best? Should you go to a Houston urgent care clinic or a hospital emergency room?
Unless your cut is clearly superficial, visit our Prime urgent care clinic in Pearland, Missouri City, and Sugar Land or the nearest ER within 6-12 hours of your injury. If the cut is serious, going without medical care can result in infection, scarring, permanent injury, or even death.
Cuts That Need Emergency Room Care
Some cuts are serious enough to require hospital care. If you have one of these cuts, head for the ER stat:
- Deep gaping wound
- Cut spurting bright red arterial blood
- Wound with jagged or torn edges
- Deep cut on a joint
- Cut that exposes muscles, veins, subcutaneous fat or bone
- Cut that still bleeds profusely after ten minutes of direct pressure
- Deep or long facial cut
- Cut that contains an embedded object
- Deep wound on hands or fingers
- Deep human or animal bite
- Scalp cut
Cuts We Treat At Prime Urgent Care
For cuts that need medical attention but are not life-threatening, we clean and stitch these types of wounds:
- Straight cuts with sides you can easily push together
- Shallow facial cuts
- Cuts and abrasions with embedded dirt
- Human or animal bites that aren’t excessively deep
- Cuts that aren’t serious but were caused by dirty or rusty objects
Sensible Precautions When Dealing With Cuts
If you’ve sustained a clean puncture wound that’s not serious, visit us for a tetanus shot if you haven’t had one in ten years. If the puncture wound involved a dirty object, get a tetanus booster if you haven’t had one in five years.
Reserve your spot online or call 713-340-3111 to see a physician. While we perform a myriad of health services for our community and take numerous health insurances, go to our urgent care clinic or the nearest ER immediately if a treated or untreated wound shows signs of infection like swelling, redness, pain, tenderness or is oozing pus. Left untreated, an infected wound can cause blood poisoning.
Regardless of wound severity, call Houston 911 if you are having a problem with movement, if there are red streaks around your wound or if a body part feels tingly or numb.
