What Flannery O’Connor taught me about chronic illness

It is a good read. I can identify with a lot of it.

[1] http://flanneryoconnor.com/on.html

See for example this MD who cured her Lupus with better nutrition: https://www.forksoverknives.com/stroke-doctor-reversed-lupus...

Or this other MD who cured her MS with better nutrition: https://terrywahls.com/

See also for general background: http://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/news/the-whole-foods-diet

Vitamin D deficiency is also common. But obviously there might be other deficiencies (or in a very rare case some genetic disorder).

Or there can be an undiagnosed chronic infections. Here is an MD who cured himself of chronic Lyme with better nutrition plus herbs plus antibiotics: http://www.lymebook.com/lyme-disease-solution

Bottom line: mainstream medicine has only become good so far at treating the first two of these three major health situations:

* accidental trauma (based on learning from US battlefield experience in surgery)

* acute infectious disease (mostly by quarantine, sanitation, and increasingly-less-effective antibiotics -- until maybe phage therapy becomes common someday)

* chronic disease like autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular disease, or cancer (usually caused by the Standard American Diet, but maybe also interacting with some other factors including exposure to toxins etc.)

All that said, part of healing is mental or spiritual -- so reading good stories can indeed help with that in a variety of ways.