Teen pain in chest and back due to possible injury

My 16 year old son, 5'11". 160 lbs is a varsity athlete who competeively runs, plays soccer and body boards.  About one month ago, he started complaining that his chest, on the upper left side hurt when he ran, he described a sharp pain.  We took him to the Dr. who performed a EKG, Chest Cat Scan and Chest x-ray, his results were all normal.  He tried to work through the pain last week, but after running a 5k in a high school meet, he told both school trainers about his chest pain, they both noticed a bulge in that chest area, we took him back to the Dr. who said it might be condroitis, to use aleve.  Today he went to run in his 2nd meet and went from running a 6ish minute mile in 2nd place out of 75 kids to completeing stopping due to chest pain.  Again, the bulge, we took him today to another Dr.  he did a throsis x-ray of the back, noticing that he has point pain in front and back T-3 area, and felt the chest area pushing out,  the x-ray showed a very mild scoliosis in that area, but nothing else.  My son may have injured that area on his body board but doesn't remember anything tramatic.  The doctor said he might have to live with that pain and may not be able to run long distance without pain, he suggested a chriproactor.  Can you please give us some advice and any good news, to a teen that wants to go to college to play sports that comment was a death sentence.
The doctor said if the cartilage is loose it may never heal.  Where do we go from here?

Thank you

[dr_simran]

Hello millerth,

Infections of the costal cartilages lead to serious sequelae. However, in infections of the costal arch, complete removal leads to gross deformity, loss of skeletal protection of the heart and liver, and chest wall instability with serious respiratory failure. Segmental cartilaginous resection followed by a period of healing and subsequent debridement of only the infected and necrotic cartilage is the preferred method for treatment of infection involving the costal cartilage.

Best