What to expect when you walk in.

Road 426 runs off Highway 41 in Oakhurst. From the north you are heading south on 41, and from Coarsegold you are heading north on the same road. From Ahwahnee and Mariposa you are on Highway 49 first, and from North Fork you are on Road 200. Directions and a map.

Give yourself a few minutes more than you think you need for a first visit. If you get lost, stop somewhere safe and call the office rather than circling.

On parking: rather than guess for you, call and ask what the arrangement is on the day, particularly if walking any distance is difficult or if you are being dropped off. Somebody who works in the building every day can answer that better than a web page can.

You will be asked for your name, for photo identification, and for your dental plan card if you carry one. If you completed the new patient forms at home, this is where they get handed over and where anything unclear gets sorted out face to face.

The medical history matters more than most people expect. Medications, doses, allergies, blood pressure, diabetes, blood thinners, bone medications, heart valve history, joint replacements and pregnancy all change what is safe to do and how it is done. Bring the list rather than reconstructing it from memory.

You will also be asked how you want to be contacted, and whether anyone else is allowed to discuss your care. Say so at the desk if you would rather not be called at work.

The chair reclines further than most people expect. If lying flat is uncomfortable, from a bad back, reflux, breathing trouble or a late pregnancy, say so before the chair moves. It can be adjusted, and there is no prize for enduring the default position.

Above the chair is the light, pointed at your mouth rather than your eyes. To one side sits the delivery unit with the handpieces and the air and water syringe. To the other, the suction, the bracket table where instruments are laid out, and a screen for your images.

The sounds are the part that unsettles people more than the sights. High pitched whine is a handpiece. A rushing, gurgling noise is suction. A rapid ticking or hissing during a cleaning is an ultrasonic scaler shaking deposit off the tooth. None of those noises mean anything is going wrong.

Digital imaging replaced film. A sensor goes where the film packet used to and the image appears on the screen beside you in seconds, at a fraction of the radiation dose film needed. It also means you look at the same picture the dentist is looking at, which is the point. More on that under preventive dentistry.

The periodontal probe is a thin blunt instrument with millimeter markings. It measures the space between gum and tooth at six points around each tooth, and those numbers are how gum disease is diagnosed and tracked rather than guessed at.

The ultrasonic scaler and the hand instruments both remove hardened deposit. Which one gets used depends on what is stuck where.

Instruments come out of a sealed sterilization pouch in front of you. If you want to know how any of it is processed, ask. Nobody minds the question, and any office that does mind is telling you something.