@yaya77066 I am surprised you were put on flecainide after only one afib attack. I have afib once a year or two with heart rate close to 200, and am still not on any meds other than "pill in a pocket" approach. Are you also on a blood thinner? Are you medicated because of other risk factors?

yaya77066, my own cardiologist, when I finally got to see him three months after my first episode of AF, in which I got myself to the ER and was diagnosed as paroxysmal (because mine reverted to normal sinus rhythm (NSR) shortly after they hooked me up to an ECG), told me I would be on both Eliquis (apixaban, a newer Direct Oral Anti-Coagulant, or DOAC) for life. He prescribed only metoprolol tartrate at 12.5 mg BID, so a single 25 mg tablet broken at the score into halves, and each half taken 12 hours apart. He didn't say it was for life, and nor did he put me on an anti-arrhythmic. I have only ever had amiodarone, an anti-arrhythmic, and it's a scary episode thankfully in my past.

I'm not a health specialist. I don't know your particular case and circumstances. I can't say why this vaunted cardiologist you speak of wants you on Flecainide for life...seems a bit aggressive to me, but I don't have all his/her experience. As windyshores says, often, especially if it is initially quite responsive to medication and becomes stable, you only need an anti-arrhythmic episodically...when you actually enter AF...and need some quick relief. It's known as pill-in-pocket or PIP. Literally, you keep a prescribed (!) dose tablet in your wallet/purse, and if you're looking at your credit card statement after Christmas shopping, and you're halfway through a burger at the eating area for a break, and your heart lurches into AF, that's when you wash the single pill down with a quick gulp of Coke or coffee and it will begin to work, ideally, within about 20-40 minutes.

I may have misunderstood what you meant by 'lifespan.' You needn't be on an anti-arrhythmic for life if you have an ablation that successfully rids you of the arrythmia, for example, and the drug has a shelf life, if that's what you mean, of at least one full year, but I'd bet if it's kept sealed and out of a bathroom, probably two full years. Or, if you mean the metabolic 'bioavailability', or what is commonly called half-life, I'd have to look that up for Flecainide, but my guess is between 5 ands 8 hours? You can google 'half-live of flecainide' and you should get three or four hits that way.