Jamie was accused of having an eating disorder - but a simple test at the hospital confirmed the truth

Jamie Leonard thought she was going crazy. For years, the Melbourne woman had been struggling to swallow liquids and foods.

"It would just stay in my chest," Leonard, 29, tells 9honey. "And eventually, I'd just have to throw it back up again because I couldn't get rid of it."

Leonard was 18 when the problem became worse.

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"I was pretty fit and healthy," she says. "I got worse as I got a bit older."

Doctors would accuse her of having an eating disorder. And for some time, her own mother believed them.

"The first thing that they thought was that I just had an eating disorder and it was nothing physical it was all mental."

They sought second and third opinions, only to be told the same each time.

Her mother, who had suffered from an eating disorder in the past, didn't know what to believe.

"We were fighting so much that year because I just felt like it's not all in my head."

One day she was in a cafe when a male friend told her to "shut up and eat a cheeseburger."

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"I was like, I wish that I could do that," she says. "I didn't like how my body looked, how my clothes fit. I didn't have much energy to do anything or really concentrate on anything.

"I had all of the kind of physical symptoms of an eating disorder."

Leonard was referred to psychologists and psychiatrists, and she and her mother travelled long distances from Ballarat in Victoria, spending thousands of dollars trying to discover the real cause.

"I'd see some fancy psychologist that would do all this psych testing. But no one was willing to listen to me when I was saying it's not in my head," she says.

She would tell them she didn't have body image issues.

"I'm actually am in pain and I need someone to listen, but no one would," she says.

One evening after a particularly bad episode, Leonard got the help she needed.

"Everyone had gone to bed. I wasn't feeling well after dinner because my food wasn't going down. I went down to the bathroom to throw it up and mum walked in and we had a huge fight," she says.

She tried, once again, to explain how she was feeling.

"I said, 'it's not in my head. I can't actually swallow any of this. It feels like there are actual rocks in my chest at the moment. I feel like I can't breathe'."

By this stage, she couldn't even keep water down and her weight had plummeted.

"I was starving and I was so frustrated," she says.

Her mother took her to the hospital the where a doctor decided to carry out a Barium swallow test.

"This test wasn't the most pleasant of tests, but it probably took under an hour to do and then as soon as the results came back she walked into the room, and she was like, 'She's telling the truth. There's actually a problem.'"

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She and her mother burst into tears.

Leonard was diagnosed with achalasia, a rare swallowing disorder that affects the oesophagus.

Sufferers are born with the condition. Over time the nerves in the esophagus are damaged, making it harder to swallow.

One in 100,000 people are affected by the condition.

She was referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist who confirmed the condition and was told she needed surgery.

Leonard was so depleted she'd need a feeding tube to get her strength up ahead of the surgery.

"I don't think I left the house once. I hated how it looked. I was embarrassed to have this tube coming out of my nose. I didn't want to do anything. I pretty much just laid in bed," she says.

Following the surgery Leonard had to re-learn how to eat, beginning with easy-to-swallow foods and working her way up to the food she'd been craving for a year: steak.

"It was pretty awesome. It was a pleasure. I was pretty much just on soup and mashed potato," she recalls.

"I went back to the surgeon for a few checkups just to make sure that everything was working as it should. The day that he said, 'yep, you can eat solid foods', I'm pretty sure mum cooked me up a big steak that night."

From there, she had her life back. She was able to join friends for lunch, eat, go out for drinks, go shopping, and enjoy coffee.

Leonard enrolled in a Bachelor of Business and now works as a project manager for the state government.

"I think it shouldn't be so hard to go to a doctor and for someone to believe you or even be empathetic towards you," she says.

"I'm lucky that my parents could afford to go and see all of these medical professionals. If I hadn't had that and hadn't been lucky enough that they could afford all of that, I actually don't know where I would be."

Support is available from the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 33 4673.

The Victorian Department of Health has established an Inquiry into Women's Pain to provide recommendations to inform improved models of care and service delivery for Victorian girls and women. To inform it, the DoH is asking Victorian girls and women (12+) living and lived experience of pain to share their story via a survey. The survey closes on July 31.