Four myths about dental implants

Dr. Adam Koppelman, DMD — Midtown Manhattan · June 12, 2026

Dental implants are the most successful prosthetic procedure in medicine. Hips, knees, lenses, valves — implants beat them all on ten-year survival rates. And yet, somehow, the mythology around them is what most patients arrive with. Let’s clear out the four most persistent ones, because the actual decision deserves better than whatever your cousin said at Thanksgiving.

Myth 1: They set off airport metal detectors

They do not. Titanium is non-ferrous and the volume in a single implant is — generously — about a thumbnail’s worth. TSA magnetometers are calibrated for handguns and Leatherman tools, not for a 4mm screw in your jaw. You can fly with a mouth full of implants and nobody at JFK will look up.

Myth 2: The surgery is very painful

It is not. An implant placement is, for most patients, less eventful than the extraction that preceded it. Local anesthesia, an hour in the chair, a couple of advil afterward, soft food for forty- eight hours. By day three most patients have forgotten what side it was on. The pain mythology comes from old-school implant protocols from the 1990s, before guided surgery and modern bone-handling existed. It’s twenty years out of date.

Myth 3: Implants are only for older patients

Wrong. The youngest implant patient is anyone whose jawbone has finished growing — usually late teens at the earliest. We see a lot of implants in patients in their twenties and thirties: trauma cases (a tooth knocked out in a bike fall or a pickup basketball game), congenitally missing teeth (about 2% of the population is born missing at least one adult tooth), and the occasional early failure from old root canals. The 65-year-old denture-replacement case is real, but it’s only a fraction of the implants we place.

Myth 4: Implants need special cleaning

They don’t. Same brush, same floss, same six-month cleanings. Treat the implant crown like a regular tooth and you’re done. The gum around an implant can be slightly more prone to inflammation if you neglect it, but the same is true of every tooth in your head, and the fix is the same: brush, floss, show up to your cleanings.

That covers most of the lore. There’s more — including the rumors about cost, the all-on-four ads on Instagram, and what to actually ask at a consultation — in the full version of this piece on Dr. Koppelman’s practice site.

Related reading on this site: dental implants · knocked-out tooth · about Dr. K