Precautions after POEM in patients with cardia achalasia

  After surgery, it is advisable to eat less and chew more, avoid too cold, too hot and stimulating diet, quit smoking and alcohol, and avoid lying down half an hour after meal. Keep your mood happy and avoid thinking and worrying a lot. Some patients are prone to reappear with symptoms of feeding obstruction, so they need to be seen again in a timely manner and undergo esophageal manometry examination.  Early detection of recurrence. Postoperative recurrence can be diagnosed at more than 6 months after surgery with an Eckardt score ≥4, combined with esophageal manometry, barium meal fluoroscopy and gastroscopy findings. Postoperative Eckardt symptom scores are performed postoperatively, and postoperative recurrence can also be monitored directly by periodic objective examinations. For postoperative recurrence, further treatment can be done, including re-POEM, endoscopic balloon dilatation, and placement of retrievable stents.  Monitoring of distant complications. The main distant complication is gastroesophageal reflux. Patients should be followed up regularly every 1-2 years after surgery to assess the presence of symptoms such as heartburn and acid reflux, gastroscopy to determine the presence of reflux esophagitis, and 24-hour esophageal pH monitoring if necessary to confirm the diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux with oral PPI-type drugs (e.g. omeprazole, rabeprazole, esomeprazole, etc., half an hour before meals, 1-2 times daily). For patients who are older, with a disease duration of 10-15 years or more, and who have recently lost significant weight, gastroscopy should be reviewed to be alert for the development of cardia cancer.