are they painful to wear? or something?

Very.

They look very harmless but the aligners pull quite a bit on the teeth. The discomfort in the first ~3 days of each new set is pretty bad. I had to stick to very soft foods and my appetite in general was suppressed. I have to remove the retainers to eat but removing them in those first few days feels like you’re trying to rip out your teeth.

After a week it eases up but then it’s just another week or a few days before you pop in the next set of aligners. A constant cycle of pain.