It seems that there’s some misunderstanding of how you think TCM treats shoulder pain. Diagnosis is the most important, just like how modern medicine did. Please take a look at this article:
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/evaluation-of-the-patient-with-shoulder-complaints
Although we don’t have lots of modern technology such as X-ray, ultra sound or MRI to do a through examination, we make diagnosis by doing taking history and performing physical examination.
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/physical-examination-of-the-shoulder
After the diagnosis, we have some ways such as acupuncture, tui-na, cupping and hand manipulation to treat patients according to their etiology and the type of injury, whether it’s a muscle, tendon, fascia or bone problem. The word “qi” you mentioned is the term TCM used to described the mechanism of the disease and patients are treated accordingly.
There are actually many different types of qi that you might be interested in:
Some patients combine rehabilitation with acupuncture and/or tui-na and hand manipulation, they’re quite satisfied with the result of treatment. If your pain lasts for too long, you can come give it a try!
