Bottom line, if you are prepared to accept the personal risk and responsibility for the clot, and a subsequent stroke, go for it. Some EPs will agree that you can go off NOACs once your CHADs2 score drops to a mere 1 or less, especially if you have a Watchman implanted and the area is deemed to be closed to blood accumulation.

Some won't. The variance may be attributable to the numbers of subsequent strokes that the various EPs report in their 'cured' patients. In turn, that might be due to the skills, or even to the grade of difficulty of the patients' conditions, of the EP agreeing to treat a set of people.

In my time reading on various fora, the two principle fears or objections are over the cost and the risk of hemorrhage. There's little to argue about the former, but the latter is entirely moot and there is no evidence the NOACs cause bleed-out. They do retard clotting, but they don't prevent it. I have had several bloody scrapes and never had uncontrollable bleeding. If I leave it alone, next I look it has clotted.

Across people and their circumstances, your chances of a stroke, once you have a history of arrythmia and of general age-related disorders and syndromes, is at least twice what the risk would be of a serious bleed. But were you to poll those who have lived past a serious stroke, I'm pretty sure they'd encourage you to take the prescription. Those who have died....are unpollable.