Bones & Joints
Rickets
Rickets is a childhood bone disease caused by vitamin D deficiency, resulting in soft, weak bones and skeletal deformities. Sunlight, vitamin D supplementation, and a calcium-rich diet are the primary remedies.
Also known as: Vitamin D deficiency, Osteomalacia (adults)
📝 At a glance
Likely root causes: Vitamin D deficiency; Insufficient sunlight exposure; Calcium-poor diet.
First thing to try: Ensure adequate daily sunlight exposure — 15–30 minutes on arms and face is sufficient for most fair-skinned children; more for darker skin.
See a doctor if: Significant skeletal deformity is present
🔎 Start with the cause
Lasting relief rarely comes from covering a symptom. First find what is feeding the problem, change what you can, and then help the body do what it was designed to do — heal.
Likely root causes
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Insufficient sunlight exposure
- Calcium-poor diet
- Phosphate deficiency
- Malabsorption disorders
Change what you can
- Ensure adequate daily sunlight exposure — 15–30 minutes on arms and face is sufficient for most fair-skinned children; more for darker skin.
- Eat a calcium-rich diet: leafy green vegetables (kale, broccoli, bok choy), beans, almonds, sesame seeds, and fortified plant milks.
- Supplement with vitamin D (400 IU daily for infants; up to 1,000 IU for children — do not exceed 1,000 IU long-term without monitoring).
- Strictly avoid soft drinks — phosphoric acid in sodas actively leaches calcium from bones.
- Ensure adequate phosphate intake through whole grains, legumes, and nuts.
- Breast-feeding mothers should ensure their own vitamin D status is adequate.
🌿 Then assist nature: remedies & protocols
With the cause being addressed, these are the actual things people do for this — ranked by the community. Vote ▲ on what helped you and ▼ on what didn't, and open How to do it for the steps. Each shows two quick signals: Evidence (how much science backs it) and Gentleness (how safe and in keeping with whole, natural health).
★ Start here — our first-line pick, pinned for safety
The essential correction — sunlight plus vitamin D rebuilds the bone.
How to do it ▾
Why it works: Sunlight on the skin lets the body make its own vitamin D, which is what allows calcium to be laid into bone. Replacing the missing vitamin corrects the actual cause, so soft bones begin to harden within days.
- Get the child outdoors for 15-30 minutes of midday sun on the face and arms (longer for darker skin), most days.
- Give a daily vitamin D supplement: 400 IU for infants, up to 1,000 IU for older children.
- Pair the sunlight with a calcium-rich meal so the newly made vitamin D has minerals to work with.
- Keep it up steadily for several weeks; bone chemistry usually starts improving within about a week.
15-30 min sun daily · Daily
Caution: Do not exceed 1,000 IU daily long-term without a doctor checking blood levels. Avoid sunburn — short, frequent exposures are safer than one long one. If bones are already deformed, a doctor should assess whether bracing or further care is needed.
When to get help: If the child has bowed legs, a curved spine, seizures, or stops growing, see a doctor — some rickets is from a metabolic problem needing prescription treatment.
Source: Natural Remedies Encyclopedia 7th ed
Comments & experiences ▾
Also helps — ranked by the community (vote to reorder)
Supplies the minerals vitamin D helps the bones absorb.
How to do it ▾
Why it works: Bone is built from calcium and phosphorus; a diet generous in both gives the body the raw material to harden soft bone once vitamin D is restored.
- Serve calcium-rich foods daily: kale, broccoli, bok choy, almonds, sesame seeds, beans.
- Include fortified plant milks for an easy calcium boost.
- Add whole grains, legumes and nuts for phosphate, the bone's other main mineral.
- Offer these with each meal rather than all at once for steadier absorption.
Ongoing · Every meal
Caution: Calcium without enough vitamin D is poorly absorbed — pair with the sunlight step. Very high-fiber meals can bind some calcium; keep the diet balanced, not extreme.
Source: Natural Remedies Encyclopedia 7th ed
Comments & experiences ▾
Stops a daily drain on the very calcium you are trying to restore.
How to do it ▾
Why it works: The phosphoric acid in colas and many soft drinks upsets the calcium-phosphate balance and leaches calcium from bone — stopping them removes a hidden cause working against recovery.
- Stop all colas and phosphoric-acid soft drinks for the child.
- Replace them with water, fortified plant milk, or weak herbal teas.
- Read labels — 'phosphoric acid' is the ingredient to avoid.
- Make the change household-wide so it is easy to keep.
Ongoing · Daily
Caution: Sweet juices are not a good substitute — prefer water and milk.
Source: Natural Remedies Encyclopedia 7th ed
Comments & experiences ▾
How the numbers work: a weighted voting system — trusted published sources cast endorsement votes for each protocol, and your ▲/▼ adds to them. Not medical advice.
🩺 When to see a doctor
- Significant skeletal deformity is present
- Serum calcium, phosphate, or vitamin D is abnormal on bloodwork
- Infant is not gaining weight or growing normally
🌿 The seven pathways to health
Seven pathways for your rickets — tap the circle to check one off (saved on your device), or ask Remy for help.
“Disease is an effort of nature to free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the laws of health... In case of sickness 1cause should be ascertained, 2go to work intelligently to remove the disease. 3Unhealthful conditions should be changed, 4wrong habits corrected. 5Then nature is to be assisted in her effort 6to expel impurities and 7to re-establish right conditions in the system.”
🌿 Overview
Rickets occurs when children do not receive adequate vitamin D, calcium, or phosphate — all essential for bone mineralization. The bones soften and bend under body weight. It is largely preventable with sufficient sunlight exposure and proper nutrition.
Vitamin D is produced in the skin through sunlight exposure and is also available from fortified foods and supplements. Without it, calcium cannot be properly absorbed, and bones fail to mineralize. Soft drinks are particularly harmful because their phosphoric acid leaches calcium from bones. Breast-fed infants with limited sunlight are at higher risk.
Common signs
- Bowed legs or knock-knees
- Soft skull bones in infants
- Delayed tooth development
- Stunted growth
- Muscle weakness
- Bone pain and tenderness
- Enlarged wrists, ankles, and ribs
🍃 Supporting foods & habits
The gentle, everyday foods and supports that help in the background — secondary to the active remedies above. Vote on what helped you.
A varied whole-food diet supplies the calcium and minerals growing bones need.930
A nutrient-rich diet supports bone healing as vitamin D is restored.920
Sensible sunlight is the natural source of vitamin D, the deficiency at the root of rickets (a doctor should guide proper vitamin D and calcium dosing).870
How the numbers work: this is a weighted voting system — every published book or article recommending a remedy counts as an endorsement vote, and your ▲/▼ counts too. Not medical advice. *Ties are broken by our editor score (sources, safety, simplicity, cost, lifestyle fit, eight-laws alignment).
🍽️ Eating to help
Food is one of the gentlest medicines — small, steady changes help most.
Favor these
- Leafy green vegetables
- Almonds and sesame seeds
- Fortified plant milks
- Beans and legumes
- Whole grains
- Orange and yellow vegetables (beta-carotene)
Go easy on
- Soft drinks (phosphoric acid leaches calcium)
- Refined sugar
- Junk food
Vitamin D from sunlight is more effective and sustainable than supplements alone. Combine both approaches.
⚖️ Good to know
- Vitamin D is fat-soluble and can accumulate to toxic levels — do not exceed 1,000 IU daily in children without physician monitoring.
- Bowed legs or skeletal deformity already present may require medical evaluation.
- Some cases of bowed legs in toddlers are normal developmental variation, not rickets.
⚕️ What a doctor may offerConventional treatments for this condition — for your information.Show ▾
RemedyRank's heart is natural healing — and honest information. Here is what conventional medical care commonly involves for this condition, listed to inform, never to promote. Decisions about treatment belong with you and your own physician.
Rickets (soft bones from vitamin D/calcium deficiency) is corrected with supplementation.
Commonly offered
- Vitamin D and calcium supplementation–
- Sensible sunlight exposure–
- Treating underlying causes (malabsorption, kidney issues)–
- Monitoring bone healing–
Worth knowing
- Bone deformities or delayed growth in a child need medical evaluation.
- Dosing should be guided by a doctor — too much vitamin D is harmful.
- Some forms are inherited and need specialist care.
👍/👎 shares whether a treatment helped you — community experience, not medical advice. For full professional details, see the sources under “Learn more” below.
📜 A note from history
Rickets was rampant in industrialized 19th-century cities where children had little sunlight. The connection to vitamin D (then called the 'antirachitic factor') was established in the 1920s by Elmer McCollum.
📚 Learn more
Sources for further reading. These open in a new tab.
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