We were lucky to catch up with Tanya Love recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tanya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

One of the most unforgettable patients of my career was a sweet older gentleman who suffered an ischemic stroke affecting the visual cortex of his brain, leaving him completely blind.

I first met him about a week after he was discharged from the hospital. Understandably, he was frightened and uncertain about what his future would look like. We immediately began an intensive acupuncture treatment plan of four sessions per week.

For the first several weeks, there were no dramatic changes – only hope, consistency, and trust in the process.

Then, after approximately six to eight treatments, something remarkable happened.

He began noticing differences between light and dark shadows.

About a month into treatment, vague gray shapes and blurry outlines started to emerge. During the second and third months, color slowly returned, and those indistinct forms gradually became recognizable objects.

Each treatment session was carefully designed to stimulate neurological recovery and improve circulation to the brain. I used acupuncture points around the eye socket as well as points along the scalp overlying the visual cortex, where gentle electrostimulation was applied. We also incorporated body points focused on improving constitutional balance and enhancing cerebral blood flow, along with customized Chinese herbal formulas traditionally used to support vision and microcirculation.

By the six-month mark, he could clearly see directly in front of him, though his peripheral vision remained significantly narrowed.

One of the most fascinating aspects of his recovery was what we observed during each treatment. At the beginning of a session, his visual field would often feel constricted and tunnel-like. By the end of a 45–50 minute treatment, his peripheral vision would noticeably widen – sometimes by 10–20%. Although some narrowing would return before his next appointment, each cycle brought incremental improvement, slowly expanding his field of vision over time.

We also noticed that stress consistently reduced his visual field, while acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine reliably helped restore and expand it again.

After six months, we reduced treatment frequency from four sessions per week to three. He continued consistently for another three months.

By the ninth month, his vision had almost completely returned, with only a slight residual narrowing at the far edges of his peripheral vision.

Equally important, we were supporting his overall vascular health and helping reduce the likelihood of future strokes, something many stroke survivors remain at high risk for.

Vision loss following a stroke is often considered one of the more permanent and difficult neurological deficits to rehabilitate. Witnessing this level of recovery was deeply moving – not only for him and his family, but for me as a practitioner.

His case eventually became the subject of my very first published case study.

Patients like him are why I practice Chinese medicine.

To walk beside someone through suffering, recovery, and transformation – and to witness the human body’s incredible capacity to heal – is one of the greatest honors of my life.

Tanya, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Dr. Tanya Love, a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, entrepreneur, educator, and the founder of Love Acupuncture & Wellness Group in Clackamas, Oregon. My life’s mission is to help people heal more naturally, live more vibrantly, and reconnect with the incredible healing capacity of the human body.

I entered this field because I was deeply fascinated by the intersection of science, energy, medicine, and human transformation. Chinese medicine completely changed the way I understood health. Instead of only suppressing symptoms, it asks deeper questions: Why is the body struggling in the first place? What systems are out of balance? How do we restore resilience, vitality, circulation, nervous system regulation, and true healing?

That philosophy changed my life, and eventually became my calling.

Today, my clinic is an integrative wellness center that brings together acupuncture, sports medicine-style dry needling, chiropractic care, massage therapy, naturopathic medicine, regenerative medicine, and holistic wellness therapies under one roof. We work with a wide variety of conditions including chronic pain, injuries, migraines, stress and burnout, women’s health, nervous system dysregulation, fertility support, autoimmune conditions, digestive issues, athletic recovery, and overall performance optimization.

One of the things that sets us apart is that we combine ancient medical wisdom with modern clinical thinking. I deeply respect both Eastern and Western medicine, and I believe the future of healthcare is integrative. Patients deserve options. They deserve practitioners who listen deeply, think critically, and treat them as whole human beings – not just diagnoses or insurance codes.

I’m also incredibly passionate about education. A huge part of my mission is helping people understand that they often have more natural healing options than they realize. Through social media, speaking, writing, and patient education, I love teaching about nutrition, nervous system health, herbal medicine, lifestyle medicine, inflammation, recovery, and preventative care. I want people to feel empowered in their health instead of helpless inside of it.

What I’m most proud of is the impact we’ve had on people’s lives.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing extraordinary transformations – patients recovering after years of chronic pain, women finally conceiving after long fertility struggles, athletes returning to the activities they love, patients finding relief from anxiety and burnout, and even neurological recovery cases that many people thought were impossible.

But beyond the clinical outcomes, I’m proud of the environment we’ve created.

I wanted our clinic to feel different. Warm. Human. Elevated. Hopeful. A place where people feel genuinely cared for from the moment they walk through the door. Healing is not only physical – it’s emotional, energetic, relational, and deeply personal.

At the heart of everything I do is the belief that medicine should restore hope.

I believe people are far more resilient than they’ve been taught to believe. I believe the body is intelligent. I believe healing is possible even when people feel discouraged. And I believe one of the greatest gifts in life is helping another human being suffer less and thrive more.

That is the work I feel honored to do every day.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing our clientele has honestly been building authentic trust and creating extraordinary patient experiences that people naturally want to talk about.

From the beginning, I never wanted our clinic to feel cold, transactional, or purely clinical. I wanted it to feel like a healing sanctuary — a place where people could exhale, feel genuinely cared for, and begin decompressing the moment they walked through the door.

That experience starts immediately. Our clinic environment is intentionally designed with warm dim lighting, soothing music, aromatherapy, crisp white linens, calming textures, and a clean yet deeply comforting atmosphere. Even our lobby is arranged more like a peaceful retreat than a traditional medical office. Healing begins before the treatment even starts.

But ultimately, what grows a practice long-term is results and relationships.

One of the biggest drivers of our growth has been word-of-mouth referrals from patients who have experienced real transformation. When someone comes into our clinic after months or years of struggling — often after feeling dismissed, unheard, or stuck in a dead end with their health — and they finally begin improving, something powerful happens. They regain hope.

Those patients often become lifelong advocates for our clinic because they remember how it felt to finally be seen, listened to, and helped.

I truly believe one of the most important moments in healthcare is within the first several treatments. If you can help restore hope early and create measurable improvement, patients blossom into what I lovingly call “raving fans.” We do our best to capture those moments through testimonials and patient stories because transformation is incredibly inspiring — not only to us, but to other people who may still be suffering and searching for answers.

Another major component of our growth has been relationship-building within the medical community.

I’ve spent years networking with physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, naturopaths, and other healthcare providers throughout our area. Sometimes those providers become patients themselves and personally experience the benefits of acupuncture and integrative medicine. That firsthand experience creates tremendous trust.

Whenever a patient is referred to us by another medical provider, we carefully document the referral source and send detailed chart notes back to the referring practitioner with the patient’s permission. This collaborative communication builds credibility, continuity of care, and stronger professional relationships. It demonstrates that we genuinely care about patient outcomes and teamwork rather than operating in silos.

Networking with local attorneys has also been an important part of our growth, particularly in the area of auto accident recovery care. Over time, attorneys learn which providers truly prioritize patient healing versus simply maximizing insurance claims. We’ve built a strong reputation for ethical care, efficient recovery-focused treatment plans, and genuinely advocating for what is best for the patient. That trust has led to many long-standing professional relationships and referrals.

At the core of all of this is a philosophy I deeply believe in: heart first, money follows.

I’ve never viewed healthcare as simply a business transaction. My mission has always been to help as many people as possible heal and thrive. Because of that, I have never turned someone away simply because they could not afford care.

If someone truly needs help, we find a way.

Over the years, patients have exchanged services ranging from helping with laundry and restocking treatment rooms to gardening, cleaning, landscaping, or assisting with projects around the clinic and my home. I believe every person has something valuable they can contribute, and healing should not be reserved only for people with financial abundance.

Another huge component of our growth has been what I call “overdelivering.”

Sometimes that means spending extra time listening deeply to a patient who simply needs to feel heard. Sometimes it means providing additional treatment approaches within a session because it is what would genuinely help them most, rather than scheduling unnecessary follow-up appointments. Sometimes it means offering nutrition guidance, lifestyle coaching, stress management support, or emotional encouragement far beyond what people expect from a medical appointment.

Patients often joke that I’m part acupuncturist, part therapist, part coach — and honestly, there’s truth to that. Healing is rarely only physical. People want to feel understood emotionally too.

One of my favorite examples of creating meaningful experiences is how we celebrate our patients’ birthdays. If someone comes into the clinic on their birthday, our staff brings out a giant light-up birthday sign, bubble guns, music, and a handmade card signed by the entire team. It only takes a minute or two, but those moments create genuine human connection and joy. People remember how you made them feel.

I think that’s ultimately the real answer to growing a loyal clientele: people remember how you made them feel.

Yes, clinical skill matters tremendously. Results matter tremendously. But in today’s world, people are craving authentic connection, presence, compassion, and hope.

We’ve been fortunate to build a strong reputation through hundreds of five-star Google reviews, patient referrals, physician referrals, and community trust — but underneath all of that is something very simple:

People can feel when you genuinely care.

And for me personally, witnessing patient transformation never gets old. Watching someone reclaim their health, energy, confidence, mobility, peace, or quality of life over weeks and months is one of the most beautiful experiences imaginable. That transformation is what drives me. It’s what inspires me. And I think that authentic passion naturally becomes contagious.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One story that really illustrates resilience in my journey was the process of building my clinic completely from scratch while learning how to carry both the weight of entrepreneurship and the emotional responsibility of caring deeply for people.

When I graduated from acupuncture school, I already knew my dream was to create an integrative wellness clinic — a place where people could experience truly holistic healing under one roof. I envisioned a healing sanctuary where patients would feel genuinely seen, cared for, and supported physically, emotionally, and energetically.

The challenge was that I had almost no money and no blueprint for how to build something that large.

So I became incredibly resourceful.

Instead of opening a full clinic immediately, I rented small treatment rooms in three different locations throughout the Portland area. I worked six very long days a week, often splitting my days between clinics and working exhausting 10–12 hour shifts trying to slowly build clientele in all three locations simultaneously.

Looking back, it was grueling — but it was also one of the smartest decisions I could have made because it allowed me to grow a full-time practice much faster.

What’s funny is I never found those opportunities through job boards or traditional hiring platforms. I strategically studied Google Maps looking for ideal medical office locations, then cold-approached clinics to see if they had unused treatment rooms available to rent on weekends or during downtime.

One of those locations ended up being inside a women’s health clinic at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center. Another came from a chiropractic office where I intentionally became a patient simply to meet the doctor and build a relationship. The third was with a naturopathic physician I had the privilege of learning from for several years.

I slowly grew from three locations to two, and eventually consolidated into one clinic that became so busy we were bursting at the seams.

At one point, I thought I might remain there long term. But life had other plans.

The chiropractor I was renting from unexpectedly passed away, and the new owner who took over the business became extremely difficult to work with. At the time, it felt incredibly stressful and destabilizing. But looking back now, that uncomfortable situation became one of the greatest gifts of my career because it forced me to leap before I felt fully ready.

Without that pressure, I may never have taken the risk of signing a lease on a much larger building and building the full wellness center I had always envisioned.

So I took the leap.

Shortly after expanding, the COVID era began, which brought an entirely new level of uncertainty and challenge for healthcare businesses everywhere. There were moments that were financially stressful, emotionally exhausting, and deeply uncertain. Like many business owners, I carried the pressure of supporting a team, caring for patients, navigating constant change, and trying to protect the future of something I had poured my entire heart into building.

But honestly, the hardest part was never just the long hours or financial uncertainty.

The hardest part was learning how to carry the emotional weight of so many people’s suffering without losing my own hope, softness, or compassion in the process.

Patients often come to our clinic at some of the lowest moments of their lives — in chronic pain, burned out, grieving, anxious, discouraged, exhausted, or feeling like they have run out of options. As a practitioner, you don’t simply treat symptoms. You hold space for human beings in vulnerable moments. You absorb stories, emotions, fears, and hope every single day.

That requires a tremendous amount of emotional resilience.

Modern healthcare can sometimes become rushed, transactional, and disconnected, but I made a decision very early in my career that I never wanted to practice medicine that way. I never wanted patients to feel like just another appointment or insurance claim. Even through exhaustion, stress, and uncertainty, I wanted to continue leading with heart.

And interestingly, the patients themselves are also what refilled me.

Watching someone reclaim their health, mobility, joy, confidence, peace, or quality of life never stops feeling sacred to me. Seeing patients transform over weeks and months — especially after they had started to lose hope — reminded me over and over again why I started this journey in the first place.

That belief carried me through every obstacle.

Over the years, we’ve continued growing, building an incredible multidisciplinary team, expanding services, and creating a clinic culture centered around healing, compassion, education, and transformation. When I look back now, every difficult season ultimately pushed me toward the next level of growth.

I think entrepreneurship constantly asks you who you are under pressure. It forces you to become resourceful, adaptable, courageous, and persistent. But for me personally, the deeper challenge was learning how to stay open-hearted through all of it.

Building the business required resilience.

Continuing to lead with compassion, hope, and genuine care through every season required even more.

And ultimately, that is the thing I’m most proud of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.LoveAcu.com
• Instagram: Love.acupuncture
• Facebook: Lovescupuncturesndwellness
• Yelp: Love Acupuncture & Wellnesd Group

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