Methadone question

I work in a nursing home and our medical director frequently prescribes Methadone for chronic pain in daily doses of 2.5mg. It is very effective for these patients and often they need very little medications for break thru pain.

My question is this....

I am the nursing supervisor and the nurses have questioned me alot about methadone treatment. Many of them state that they way they understand how methadone works in the body is that even if the patient takes another pain med (oxycodone etc) that the methadone makes it ineffective in the body.

This is the way that I explained methadone treatment to them. I need to know if I told them right, lol.

I told them that Methadone is a very effective pain medication. That yes, it is used as a treatment for heroin but it is used at much higher doses for that. When used in smaller doses it is an effective pain medication. I explained to them that it is an opioid and does not make other narcotics "ineffective" in the body (it doesnt "cancel" them out as one nurse asked).

They were concerned when she started ordering methadone. Most of them had only heard of methadone as a treatment for heroin.

Did I explain it correctly? The way I understand how methadone works is that it is just another opioid that is very effective in pain relief.

I have read how it works in the body and this is how I understand it and how I understood it when the doc explained it to me. I just dont want to be telling my nurses the wrong information.

My ex husband had acute intermittent porphyria. His doctor prescribed methadone for pain when the demerol stopped working (we all thought he couldnt take morphine at the time). The way the nursing staff treated him when they saw he was taking methadone broke my heart. Of course, this was in the early 90's and things are different now, thank God. His doc explained methadone to me this same way then but I want to make sure I am understanding it.

Any thoughts?