hey everybody doctor over here I want to talk about two very important terms here they're kind of used incorrectly quite often and I want to try to clear this up so the difference between an infection and a disease so an infection is when you've been invaded or colonized by a pathogen which is an organism that's capable of producing a disease a disease is when you've now disrupted homeostasis you're now it's an abnormal state whether some signs there's some symptoms there's some disruption to normal bodily functions so I know we do use the words interchangeably but you can have an infection and not have a disease you can have an infection and never get a disease let's think about a few examples of when you're infected but you don't have a disease first would be just the incubation period of any disease any infectious disease you've been infected you've been colonized you've been invaded but you don't actually have any symptoms yet so the incubation period would be a good example of when you have an infection but not a disease and then think about the kind of diseases that comes that that comes months years or even decades later shingles is a good example so you've been infected with the virus that causes shingles for potentially decades before you get it HIV HIV infection see diffs another great example if someone actually has a c-diff infection the term we use you know they could have been colonized by that seed if decades before so just to review an infection is when you've been colonized or in and/or invaded by a pathogen but you don't have a disease yet you have a disease when you've now lost some bodily function you have some signs or symptoms symptoms there's a disruption to homeostasis the maintenance of that stable internal environment so I hope this helps have a wonderful day be blessed