Question xbox controller d pad

I have read over the years how bad this was, but never used one.
Now I have one thus are making my game work on it and I understand the complaints.

left/right <> = change something, up/down ^v = change something else
The problem is when I just want to press left (eg change weapon) 50% of the time it will also press up or down, changing something else.
How do people deal with this?

EDIT: OK I've just done the following, which seems to cut down most of the wrong presses (not all, but its a lot less annoying than it was)

Code (CSharp):

1. if ( DPAD_v != 0 && Mathf.Abs(DPAD_v) > Mathf.Abs(DPAD_h) )
2.   DoVerticleDPAD()