What to do about this?

I was diagnosed with asthma about ten years ago, but it's never been extremely bad or out of control. It was always easily treated with my albuteral rescue inhalor and I only needed my inhalor on rare occasions. Over the last couple of months, I've been waking up with a sore, tight chest or shortness of breath. The shortness of breath is almost constant, and gasping for air all day makes my chest extremely sore. I know I probably need to be on a daily treatment, but those medications can be very dangerous. Besides daily inhalors, is there anything I can do to reduce my asthma and keep it under better control?