∞ generated and posted on 2016.03.18 ∞
Time during a disease when clearly health is deteriorating but in a somewhat nonspecific manner and before full-blown disease has kicked in.
| When you just know you are getting sick because you are feeling lousy but can't quite put your finger on exactly what is going wrong, but aren't really, really sick yet, that is the Prodromal Period. |
The prodromal period is preceded by the incubation period and typically will be followed by a (period of illness).
In some or many instances you may not pass beyond the prodromal period. Indeed, with vaccination, or active immunity generally, the goal typically is to ward off disease, but not necessarily infection. As a result there is at least some potential for exposure to an agent to give rise to relatively brief, low-level of disease. This can be viewed as experiencing a prodromal period without moving on to full-blown disease.