Brief Answer:
it may or may not be the cartilage, please see the detailed answer below...

Detailed Answer:
Hello there,
Welcome to 'Ask A Doctor' service...
I've gone through your query in details...
I can understand your concerns...

I believe since there are already so many stent placements, you must be familiar with the nature of the chest pain, so the answer to the query is both yes and no.

Time to go through a simple model of self-examination as explained below:

-Are you getting breathless along with chest pain?

-Is there any excessive sweating?

-Any chest pain at rest?

-Any dizziness/lethargy at any point of the day?

If any of the answers to these questions is yes or maybe, then you need to report it to your cardiologist for a further check-up (preferably a fresh EKG, 2D-echocardiogram and a stress test along with the stent patency check).

In case your feeling the chest pain during respiration (inspiration or expiration), then you can try a mild analgesic as in ACETAMINOPHEN (eg. Tylenol) up to thrice daily for the time-being and observe how you stay. If the pain improves, then it can be attributed to the musculoskeletal or the cartilage issue...

Let me know if I can assist you further...

Take Care
Kind Regards

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