SCs and Afflictions

[Endovior]

Forgive me in advance if this has been answered elsewhere; I'm still kinda new at this.

After playing around to the point where I can beat the AI on Easy, I've played a few games against Normal, and in looking for more efficient strategies, I've been trying out SC Pretenders instead of the back-row mage-types I've been using thus far. Although I'm impressed with the power to casually demolish most indie provinces and AI chaff hordes, I invariably wind up acquiring a few nasty afflictions along the way, from annoyances like Lame and Eye Loss to more serious problems like Mute. I've tried a few more resilient Pretenders like the Wyrm, but still find that some lucky blow winds up inflicting a nasty and permanent disability on my Pretender, either halting or slowing my expansion plans as I need to rework my plans.

It seems that this would be an issue with all types of SCs; and barring such things as Gift of Health (which I'd assume that you can't always get in MP) and the Chalice (again, not always available), then unless you're of a race that naturally grants healers, or somehow luck into some other source of healing, then there's no way to rid yourself of such maledictions, and you'll either have to retire your Pretender to research duties or relegate your awesome summon to army support (or just suicide it somewhere). Given that these issues should come up more often then not, even against massive piles of chaff, wouldn't this represent a serious limit on the usefulness of SCs? Or am I missing something really obvious?