What are the differences between Eastern and western medicine? Thousands of. Western medicine is likely to treat the symptom, while Eastern medicine treats the primary cause in the problem. An acupuncture needle in the foot cure a headache, though these 2 areas of the body seem unrelated to people. In Western medicine, we typically emphasize capturing a pill to stop problems, like headaches, bloodstream pressure pressure, etc. However, we can see this only leads some other problems and does not ...