Amlodipine, sold under the brand name Norvasc among others, is a calcium channel blocker medication used to treat high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It is taken by mouth.Common side effects include swelling, feeling tired, abdominal pain, and nausea. Serious side effects may include low blood pressure or heart attack. Whether use is safe during pregnancy or breastfeeding is unclear. When used by people with liver problems, and in elderly individuals, doses should be reduced. Amlodipine works partly by increasing the size of arteries. It is a long-acting calcium channel blocker of the dihydropyridine type.Amlodipine was patented in 1982, and approved for medical use in 1990. It is on the World Health Organizations List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the fifth most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 69 million prescriptions. Medical uses
Amlodipine is used in the management of hypertension and coronary artery disease in people with either stable angina (where chest pain occurs mostly after physical or emotional stress) or vasospastic angina (where it occurs in cycles) and without heart failure. It can be used as either monotherapy or combination therapy for the management of hypertension or coronary artery disease. Amlodipine can be administered to adults and children 6–17 years of age. Calcium channel blockers, including amlodipine, may provide greater protection against stroke than other classes of blood pressure-lowering medications.Amlodipine along with other calcium channel blockers are considered the first choice in the pharmacological management of Raynauds phenomenon.
The diarrhea-causing bacteria Campylobacter jejuni is also a reported cause of transverse myelitis.Other associated causes include the helminth infection schistosomiasis, spinal cord injuries, vascular disorders that impede the blood flow through vessels of the spinal cord, and paraneoplastic syndrome. Pathophysiology
This progressive loss of the fatty myelin sheath surrounding the nerves in the affected spinal cord occurs for unclear reasons following infections or due to multiple sclerosis. Infections may cause TM through direct tissue damage or by immune-mediated infection-triggered tissue damage. The lesions present are usually inflammatory. Spinal cord involvement is usually central, uniform, and symmetric in comparison to multiple sclerosis which typically affects the cord in a patchy way and the lesions are usually peripheral. The lesions in acute TM are mostly limited to the spinal cord with no involvement of other structures in the central nervous system. Longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis
A proposed special clinical presentation is the "longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis" (LETM), which is defined as a TM with a spinal cord lesion that extends over three or more vertebral segments. The causes of LETM are also heterogeneous and the presence of MOG auto-antibodies has been proposed as a diagnostic biomarker. Diagnosis
Diagnostic criteria
In 2002, the Transverse Myelitis Consortium Working Group proposed the following diagnostic criteria for idiopathic acute transverse myelitis:

Investigations
Individuals who develop TM are typically transferred to a neurologist who can urgently investigate the patient in a hospital. If breathing is affected, particularly in upper spinal cord lesions, methods of artificial ventilation must be on hand before and during the transfer procedure.