'When I saw a GP for stomach pain he told me to "lose weight". Hours later, I was in emergency.'

It was a typical day at work for Leah Selfe when she began to feel unwell. She'd had a few meetings with her team and some potential customers, before heading to the local cafe for lunch. 

"I began to feel rather full, and I thought maybe I had eaten too much," Leah told Mamamia. 

"But then my stomach got really tight. And within about 10 to 15 minutes, I needed to go to the bathroom to urinate, but I wasn't able to go."

Leah's first thought was that she had a severe UTI. She tried to tough it out, but the pain in her groin and stomach became too strong for her to concentrate, and only seemed to be getting worse.

Watch: How being overweight can also be healthy. Article continues below.

After telling her boss she was leaving for the day, Leah made a doctor's appointment, hoping she'd be given medication for a UTI, and be back at work the following day. But she wasn't able to get in to her regular GP, and saw someone she didn't know.

Leah explained to the male GP that she'd been experiencing burning in her groin, tightness around her abdomen and heavy breathing, along with an intense urge to go to the bathroom, despite not being able to.

Expecting him to perform a urine test to confirm the presence of a UTI, and potentially prescribe some medication, Leah instead found the doctor uninterested in anything she had to say.

"If anything, he looked annoyed and frustrated," Leah said.

The doctor asked Leah to lie down on the examination table, where he pressed on her stomach. He also took her blood pressure, which was slightly elevated.

"After his brief assessment he asked me to sit up and said that the pain was due to my weight and that my weight was putting pressure on my organs and my lower back."

He said she needed to get outside and "go for a walk" to ease the pain.

"He said if I lost some weight, I wouldn't have these problems. He then said that there was nothing he could give me and then we were done."

Leah left the appointment feeling furious, and completely let down.

"Honestly, I hadn't felt so belittled and treated like trash by a GP before," she said. "He was so rude about his approach to my pain and so nonchalant about what I needed to do to fix it."

Escalating pain. 

After her appointment, Leah drove to her son's daycare to collect him early as her pain was increasing. During the 20-minute wait for him to return from an excursion, Leah — no longer able to sit or stand — was forced to lie down on the daycare couch.

"I was in horrible pain with this insane need to go to the bathroom, but again nothing was happening. My lower back was starting to ache — similar to what I had experienced with period pain. I was sweating and was having trouble breathing, which was from trying to handle the pain."

When her son arrived, Leah decided to drive home, despite her condition, with the intention of calling a home-visiting doctor. Still believing she had a UTI, Leah sat on the floor of her shower, running hot water over her lower back — to no avail.

"Nothing was working, and the pain was getting extreme. I wasn't able to sit, lay down or stand. The only place I could find comfort was on all fours rocking backwards and forwards," she shared.

"Within the next 20 to 30 minutes, I called an ambulance. I knew that was extreme, but I couldn't take the pain anymore. When we arrived at the hospital, I was in so much pain I was screaming and it felt like my insides were ripping themselves apart. It took a further couple of doses of morphine before it started to take the edge off and I could finally bear the pain."

A subsequent x-ray and ultrasound would reveal a 12cm torted cyst below Leah's left ovary on her fallopian tube.

"Essentially the cyst had gotten so big and heavy it was twisting forward and, in turn, twisting my fallopian tube and tearing away from my left ovary," Leah explained.

She had both the cyst and her fallopian tube removed, and because of the torsion, the ovary ended up becoming a hematoma, losing blood flow and dying — and leaving Leah in hospital for five days. But that wasn't the end of her medical troubles.

"Within 48 hours of arriving home, I started to get a fever. I had cold shivers and was waking up throughout the night wet from sweat."

Another trip to the hospital revealed Leah's liver was starting to fail, however after another five days in hospital, she was sent home again to recover.

The ultimate betrayal. 

Leah believes her GP took one look at her and assumed all of her problems came from being overweight. "I felt so betrayed by this GP and almost like I was pushed aside because he couldn't be bothered. To be completely overlooked and not taken seriously was disgusting."

Leah says she was the victim of medical misogyny, which she believes is a regular experience for many women. 

"I do think that women are treated differently and our symptoms can be so easily overlooked," she said. "A perfect example was my grandmother, who was dismissed for two years by her male GP, and when we finally convinced her to get a second opinion, it turned out to be bowel cancer.

"She has passed now but who knows — maybe if they had caught it earlier it would've been a different ending. And God forbid you be overweight, because then it seems like all the problems you have are because you are 'too fat.'"

Leah says women need to be not just listened to, but truly heard — and our understanding of our own bodies needs to be respected.

"We know when something doesn't feel right. Instead of being gaslit or turned away because it doesn't sound logical or it seems too hard — doctors should just listen. Give us a chance to voice our concerns and take the time to listen to them.

"Part of the doctors' oath is, 'the health of my patient will be my first consideration', but in many cases it seems like their first consideration is, 'how many people can they get through the door?'"

Feature Image: Supplied.