diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 47d3ec5cf..90ca49212 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## [1.10.0.1] — 2026-06-03 — Defer the intra-day retention drain past startup
+
+### Fixed
+
+- **The app no longer turns unresponsive shortly after a deploy or restart.** The new intra-day retention drain ran its catch-up pass the moment the background worker started, at the same time as the database migration, the other start-up backfills, and the first health checks — all sharing one connection pool. On an instance with a lot of history this exhausted the pool, so the app stopped answering until it restarted, then repeated. The catch-up now waits until start-up has settled before it runs; it is unchanged otherwise and the nightly pass is unaffected.
+
 ## [1.10.0] — 2026-06-03 — Derived wellness metrics, device-event awareness, deeper ingestion
 
 ### Added
diff --git a/docs/api/openapi.yaml b/docs/api/openapi.yaml
index 708980948..243d4be12 100644
--- a/docs/api/openapi.yaml
+++ b/docs/api/openapi.yaml
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 openapi: 3.1.0
 info:
   title: HealthLog API
-  version: 1.10.0
+  version: 1.10.0.1
   description: >-
     Self-hosted personal-health-tracking PWA — public API surface for the iOS native client and external ingest.
 
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index fe05f1d38..44da40e57 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "healthlog",
-  "version": "1.10.0",
+  "version": "1.10.0.1",
   "description": "Self-hosted personal-health-tracking PWA with Withings integration, AI insights, and doctor-report PDF export.",
   "license": "AGPL-3.0-only",
   "homepage": "https://healthlog.dev",
diff --git a/src/lib/jobs/__tests__/stress-strain-retention-queue.test.ts b/src/lib/jobs/__tests__/stress-strain-retention-queue.test.ts
index 4daea0d98..dcfaa3e03 100644
--- a/src/lib/jobs/__tests__/stress-strain-retention-queue.test.ts
+++ b/src/lib/jobs/__tests__/stress-strain-retention-queue.test.ts
@@ -17,6 +17,9 @@ import { describe, expect, it } from "vitest";
 const REMINDER_WORKER_PATH = join(__dirname, "..", "reminder-worker.ts");
 const source = readFileSync(REMINDER_WORKER_PATH, "utf8");
 
+const DENSE_RETENTION_PATH = join(__dirname, "..", "dense-intraday-retention.ts");
+const denseRetentionSource = readFileSync(DENSE_RETENTION_PATH, "utf8");
+
 function allQueuesBlock(): string {
   const m = source.match(/const allQueues\s*=\s*\[([\s\S]*?)\];/);
   expect(m).not.toBeNull();
@@ -93,6 +96,20 @@ describe("reminder-worker — dense intra-day retention wiring", () => {
     expect(source).toMatch(/await enqueueBootTimeDenseIntradayRetention\(\)/);
   });
 
+  it("defers the boot-discovery drain past the startup storm (P2028 guard)", () => {
+    // The boot-time per-user retention jobs MUST carry a startAfter delay so
+    // the transaction-per-day drain never contends with the deploy storm +
+    // migration + other boot backfills + foreground health-checks for the
+    // shared connection pool. Dropping this re-opens the v1.10.0 pool-
+    // exhaustion (P2028) restart loop on a data-heavy tenant.
+    expect(denseRetentionSource).toMatch(
+      /DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_BOOT_DELAY_SECONDS\s*=\s*\d+/,
+    );
+    expect(denseRetentionSource).toMatch(
+      /boss\.send\([\s\S]{0,400}startAfter:\s*DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_BOOT_DELAY_SECONDS/,
+    );
+  });
+
   it("folds the nightly dense-retention walk onto the drain-cumulative tick", () => {
     // The steady-state nightly walk runs the global (no-userId) pass on the
     // same tick as the cumulative + mean drains.
diff --git a/src/lib/jobs/dense-intraday-retention.ts b/src/lib/jobs/dense-intraday-retention.ts
index 24fd395eb..f39d7a2ca 100644
--- a/src/lib/jobs/dense-intraday-retention.ts
+++ b/src/lib/jobs/dense-intraday-retention.ts
@@ -46,6 +46,21 @@ export const DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_CONCURRENCY = 1;
  */
 export const DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_CRON = "50 3 * * *";
 
+/**
+ * Boot-discovery jobs start only after this delay (seconds) so the
+ * catch-up drain never competes with the startup storm — the deploy
+ * container recreate, the Prisma migration, the other boot-time backfills
+ * (rollup / mean- + step-consolidation / mood / medication-compliance),
+ * and the foreground health-checks all share one connection pool. Running
+ * the transaction-per-day drain into that contention exhausted the pool on
+ * a data-heavy tenant (`P2028: Unable to start a transaction in the given
+ * time`), starving `/api/health` into a restart loop. Deferring past the
+ * boot window restores the pre-v1.10 boot profile; the scheduled 03:50
+ * cron is unaffected, and the per-user jobs still drain serially
+ * (concurrency 1) once the delay elapses.
+ */
+export const DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_BOOT_DELAY_SECONDS = 600;
+
 export interface DenseIntradayRetentionPayload {
   userId: string;
   enqueuedAt: string;
@@ -144,6 +159,9 @@ export async function enqueueBootTimeDenseIntradayRetention(): Promise<{
         retryLimit: 3,
         retryDelay: 60,
         retryBackoff: true,
+        // Defer past the boot storm so the drain never contends with
+        // startup + foreground for the shared connection pool.
+        startAfter: DENSE_INTRADAY_RETENTION_BOOT_DELAY_SECONDS,
         singletonKey: `dense-intraday-retention|${userId}`,
       });
       if (jobId) {