Diet recovery after esophageal and cardia cancer surgery is one of the key factors that determine the recovery status and quality of life of patients after surgery. In principle, when discharged from the hospital, doctors will order to have small amount of meals and chew slowly. In fact, this is not comprehensive, and of course the requirements are different from doctor to doctor. I generally require my patients after surgery, 1 week to 10 days after discharge, about 15-20 days after surgery, to slowly transition to eating soft food, that is, can not always eat liquid food, otherwise the patient is not enough nutrition, poor physical recovery; 2 weeks to 20 days after discharge, about 20-30 days after surgery, to resume the basic normal diet, that is, 1 day three meals, each meal can not eat too little, such as pre-operative each meal can eat For example, if you can eat 1 bowl of each meal before surgery, it is best not to eat less than half a bowl at this time, and you can add 2 meals of snacks in between, but don’t eat too much. Because the stomach is very good elasticity and toughness, post-operative 1 month is a period of rapid recovery, if you eat too little now, the capacity of the stomach is small, later recovery is relatively difficult. I’m still talking about the principle of a gradual process that takes into account the specific situation of the patient. The following are some of the problems often encountered: 1, diarrhea. In principle, patients can eat all foods after discharge, but most patients are prone to diarrhea after eating greasy foods. This is because after esophageal or cardia surgery, there is a reconstruction of the digestive tract, digestion and absorption function need time to recover. You can take some oral antidiarrheal drugs of the flavonoid type, and your diet should be adjusted appropriately. But do not ban oil, unless the symptoms are severe, you can temporarily ban oil. 2 . Acid reflux. Most patients have different degrees of acid reflux symptoms after surgery. This is because the cardia has been removed, the normal physiological anti-reflux mechanism is no longer available. Long-term severe acid reflux is not only very painful for the patient, but also can cause anastomotic erosion, chronic inflammation, and even anastomotic stenosis. Patients can take oral acid control drugs such as Loxac, the symptoms will generally improve significantly, some patients need to take oral for a longer period of time. 3. Anastomotic stricture. Patients feel that they still have choking in eating, and even suspect whether the tumor has not been removed or the tumor has recurred. The postoperative eating disorder is due to anastomotic stenosis, which is a completely different concept from the preoperative tumor obstruction. The main causes of anastomotic stenosis are: anastomotic edema, postoperative esophagogastric anastomosis edema and other inflammatory reactions usually need three months to completely subside; contracture of anastomotic scar, especially for patients with scar body; obvious preoperative tumor obstruction symptoms, obvious expansion of esophagus on tumor; postoperative radiotherapy; long-term chronic anastomotic inflammation, mainly severe acid reflux. If drug treatment is ineffective, anastomotic hydrosalping can be performed. 4.Significant weight loss after surgery. In the clinic, we often encounter patients who complain that they eat a lot but lose a lot of weight, and even wonder if the surgery was not clean. In fact, it is because of the reconstruction of the digestive tract after esophageal or cardia surgery, digestion and absorption function is affected. Many patients have lost 20 pounds or so when they are reviewed three months after surgery. This is not surprising, generally speaking, within 1 year after surgery will be thin, 1-1.5 years of weight stability, and then slowly began to grow meat. 5, anastomotic blockage. The typical symptom is that the patient feels that he or she suddenly cannot even swallow water. Usually after the patient eats lean meat and coarse fiber food, so the patient must chew finely before swallowing when eating such food. Otherwise, the anastomosis is easily blocked. For treatment, it is usually necessary to remove the obstruction by gastroscopy. 6, postoperative gastroparesis. This mainly occurs in the early stage after discharge from hospital, usually after the patient eats heavy greasy food, especially greasy tonic, as the saying goes, “the stomach is blocked”, the professional term is called: pyloric obstruction or gastroparesis. It is caused by insufficient gastric power or edema or angulation of the pylorus (the junction of the stomach and small intestine), which prevents food from entering the small intestine through the pylorus. The treatment usually requires fasting, down the gastric tube, infusion of nutritional support, if there is a nasal feeding tube can be nasal feeding, it takes about 20 days to slowly recover, you can try drugs and acupuncture, I personally do not think it helps much, the key is to take time to recover.