If you or your child has asthma, you’re probably worried about both seasonal flu and swine flu (H1N1). You should be—at least enough to take protective action. Now is the time to get asthmatic lungs in the best shape they can be.

Your chance of catching the flu is the same as everyone else’s, but if you do get sick, you’re more likely than others to end up with a serious complication such as bronchitis or pneumonia. For swine flu (H1N1), there is preliminary evidence that many of the U.S. patients hospitalized with infection had underlying asthma.

First step to get your lungs in shape? Get seasonal and H1N1 flu shots as soon as they’re available. It is now recommended that asthma sufferers also have the pneumococcal vaccine, because it has been found they are more prone to pneumococcal infection—the most common complication of influenza.

Even after you’ve been vaccinated, though, you’re not completely out of the woods. No vaccine is 100 percent effective, and other viral infections can also lead to respiratory complications, so getting your asthma under the best control possible is the next step in safeguarding yourself, says Robert Cowie, M.D., head of the asthma program at the University of Calgary. “The better your baseline, the less likely you are to drop into a critical zone when exposed to a viral infection, like influenza. People with poorly controlled asthma need only a little nudge to get themselves into trouble, whereas if [their asthma is] really well controlled, they’ve got lots of lung function in reserve.”

But control is both hard to find—and hard to keep. “Asthma is a moving target,” says Norman Edelman, M.D., chief medical officer for the American Lung Association (ALA). A number of things, from emotional upset to weather to allergies, can trigger a flare and leave you scrambling to regain control. “Management really requires cooperation between the patient and physician.”

That’s why the ALA and other asthma organizations recommend developing a written action plan with your doctor. An asthma action plan is individualized for your needs. It’s designed to teach you how to recognize warning signs that your asthma is getting worse so you can seek treatment and get your medication adjusted accordingly.

One of the most common mistakes people with asthma make is to cut back on their medications when their symptoms start to improve. “Some patients and even doctors think that asthma only occurs when you have an attack. It’s actually a chronic disease, meaning it’s there all the time,” says Dr. Cowie. So, while your rescue inhaler should only be used for severe symptoms, you also need a daily controller inhaler—even when you feel fine—to decrease airway inflammation and maintain asthma control.

Another common mistake patients make is to ignore asthma triggers, which can worsen your symptoms and even induce a flare-up. These include tobacco smoke and other common allergens, like dust mites, animal dander, molds, pollen, cockroach droppings and even certain foods. Knowing your triggers—and avoiding them—is important for keeping your symptoms in check.

Still, even when they avoid triggers and use the right medication, less than half of people with asthma actually have optimum control of it. “Patients think they’re okay, but that’s compared with when they’re feeling terrible,” says Dr. Cowie. “We need to educate people with asthma to recognize what control looks like.”

According to Dr. Cowie, the hallmarks of good asthma control are:

• Experiencing only mild symptoms, no more than twice a week
• Needing to use your rescue medication no more than twice a week (except before exercise)
• Few, if any, asthma flares
• Not waking at night with symptoms

What’s your action plan? Talk about it on the iVillage Allergies and Asthma message board and Children’s Asthma message board.