45 Female, New to Invisalign - Norwalk, CT

I just had my 1st set of Invisalign aligners put on yesterday. I have a front tooth that has been pushed up (due to overcrowding) which gives the appearance that one of my front teeth is shorter than the other, or as some people have said, it looks broken, as well as I have overcrowding on the bottom teeth which caused overlapping in that area. I was in metal braces from 1974-1983, age 9 to age 18 (yes, 9 years) for an underbite and overlapped teeth on uppers and lowers. My teeth were pefect when my braces came off in my senior year of high school. Not sure what happened over the years, but my teeth have reverted back to crowding which caused the upper front tooth to push up into my gums. What I am hearing is that I should have been given a retainer after my metal braces came off to wear at night to keep my teeth in order. I don’t remember ever receiving one. So, here I am at age 45 getting braces again. My dentist put the 3 buttons on the lower teeth first, and used what looked like a nail file (not metal, but cardboard one with sandpaper), and began to shave away in between the teeth, then he attached my 1st bottom aligner. I did not get my upper aligner yet, as he said my lower will take long and therefore, I will be getting the upper aligner at 8 weeks. So far, slight discomfort only when I take them out to eat, then when I put them back in. While they are in, there is no pain, actually while they are in they feel itchy to me, I can’t explain it. Things I dislike so far: I thought I could just pop them out anywhere like at the lunch table at the office cafeteria, but apparently there is a drool (saliva) factor to take into consideration. lol. Also, upon taking them out this morning when I woke up, the aligner had a very bad smell. Overall, the estimated time frame is 32 weeks total, but that could be longer if my front tooth does not drop down. I will try to come back and chart my progress as things move along. :)