Seems I spoke too soon. This is accomplishing the same result as the delay, which is making the regen wait the time before it applies another + health. Essentially 5 second, + health, 5 second, + health.
Ok playing around with it, looks like it was due to the way I was adding the health. The timer was looping because the amount was too low, setting it to add max health - health has fixed it. After taking damage and waiting the allotted time, the health will regen to full. =)