Adams suffered shortness of breath and nausea in the last quarter of North's loss to Collingwood in round seven, but didn't experience another episode until training at his family home in the Yarra Valley in the off-season.
Tests revealed that the 22-year-old has supraventricular tachycardia, which creates an intermittent rapid heart rate of up to 250 beats per minute but can be irregular in its symptoms.
A cross-linking of nerves - or collateral branch - in Adams' heart will be blocked when surgeons perform a procedure called atrial ablation at Royal Melbourne Hospital on December 16.
However, the procedure is relatively minor with surgeons accessing his heart through the femoral artery in his upper leg. He will spend just one night in hospital.
Adams can continue his modified training program until the surgery and should only need two weeks' rest in his recovery.
His return to training in January will be dictated by how quickly the wound in his groin heals.
Adams said he wasn't worried about the surgery, and was pleased that he had got through the club's high-altitude training camp in Utah last month without incident.
"I've pretty much done every session but probably the one thing that gets me is time trials when I've just got to push my body and my heart that little bit harder," he said.
"The surgeon is pretty optimistic about it. He just said he's done AFL footballers before and does the surgery every day of the week, so it's not like it's a rare thing.
"We didn't think much of it after the first time it happened and I managed to get through the rest of the year."
Adams said his heart rate neared 230-240 beats per minute during the Collingwood game, and was still peaking at 140-150 beats afterwards.
An athlete's maximum heart rate is usually 160-180 beats per minute, while a resting rate is around 60 beats.
"I did a couple of hard efforts and just found it really hard to get my breath back," Adams said. "Obviously my heart rate was through the roof, so I started feeling pretty crook.
"I didn't have any energy and I felt really faint, but it happened to be that game where we had a few injuries so I had to go back on the ground.
"I started feeling pretty nauseous and threw up a couple of times on the ground. Afterwards in the rooms, I was feeling pretty bad ... so the doctors made me stay there until my heart rate came down.
"It's one of those things where one day I can push my heart to the limit and nothing happens, and I might do it the next day and it does happen."
Former players Glen Jakovich (West Coast), Nathan Eagleton (Port Adelaide and Western Bulldogs) and Ian Prendergast (Carlton) had heart conditions treated during their careers.
Peter Schwab suffered arrhythmia when coaching Hawthorn early this decade.
Despite a mid-season hamstring injury, Adams enjoyed a breakout year in 2010 - playing 15 games and finishing a surprise fourth in the club's best and fairest count.
