Bolded the important part. Your flesh isn't stitching itself back together or anything, you're just fighting through it(probably with an adrenaline rush) until you can tend to them later.
As far as the whole hiding in plain sight thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
You do know that you can be dropped to 1 hp and regenerate back to full health and stay there. If this was temporary then I could see it but you do heal.